“When I left the house, it felt like I was inhaling smoke,” says Imran Ahmed Ali, a lawyer from the northern Indian city of Chandigarh.
Chandigarh has the highest pollution level in India planned citylocated about 240 km (150 miles) from the capital Delhi – exceeded the safe limit recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) by more than 15 times for more than a month.
Now, air quality in the city usually worsens every winter, but Mr Ali says he has never felt so bad before.
A few weeks ago, the 31-year-old started experiencing a dry cough and shortness of breath, which he initially dismissed as symptoms of a seasonal cold. But as the temperature dropped, the chest congestion worsened, and he went to the doctor.
“After doing several tests, the doctor told me that my symptoms were caused by pollution. Now I take medicine twice a day to regulate my breathing,” he says.
Mr. Ali is among hundreds of millions of people living in northern India who have to breathe toxic air pollution every winter.
According to the Swiss firm IQAir, externaleight of the world’s 10 most polluted cities last year were located in the Indo-Gangetic plains, a densely populated region that stretches across northern and eastern India, as well as parts of Pakistan and Nepal.
Recent the report, external The University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute reiterates that the northern plains, home to 540.7 million people in Bihar, Chandigarh, Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, is India’s most polluted region. Compared to WHO standards, air pollution at current levels could reduce life expectancy here by 5.4 years, it added.
But as the toxic smog closes in every winter, the headlines and attention mostly focus on Delhi.
