Subhechcha Ganguly 
In the week between January 29 and February 8, the Swiss air tracking index IQAir, a real-time air quality monitor, identified Mumbai as the second most polluted city in the world and the most polluted city in India. However, Delhi is not on a list of the top 10 polluting cities in the world that was just recently published. Mumbai, the capital of Maharashtra, earned the position this time.
Notably, Mumbai was placed 10th on the list on January 29 and was first on the list by February 2. Before helping Mumbai become the second most polluted city on February 13, the air quality in the city saw a reasonable peak and trough. Mumbai, India’s financial centre, has experienced a noticeable decline in air quality over the peak winter months of November to January in 2022–2023 as a result of a number of reasons. The high levels of pollution in Mumbai have been attributed by experts to the dust from roads and construction sites as well as the smoke from moving automobiles.
According to a 2020 study by NEERI and IIT-B, Mumbai’s large concentration of particle matter (about 71%) makes road or construction dust the city’s leading cause of air pollution. The remainder is generated by factories, power plants, airports, and waste dumps. The aforementioned elements, along with the La Nina effect’s reduced wind speed along the west coast, have all had a significant negative impact on the air quality.With the help of data from the Central Pollution Control Board, IQAir, a Swiss air tracking index and real-time global air quality monitor, measures the quality of the air in India (CPCB). According to US air quality index (AQI) standards, which are stricter than those in India, the cities are divided into three categories: “healthy,” “unhealthy,” and “hazardous.”
