India Launches Air Quality Index

In a significant development, India’s environment ministry on Oct 17 launched the national Air Quality Index (AQI), a tool for people to measure air quality in their vicinity.

Launching AQI, Environment minister Prakash Javadekar referred to it as one of the initiatives under the Swacch Bharat Mission of the government. He termed the Index “one number, one colour, one description” measure which will widely classify daily air quality and inform people in a simple manner.

The index is classified into six categories — good, satisfactory, moderately polluted, poor, very poor, and severe — with colour coding ranging from green to dark red. This index transforms various air pollution levels into a single number for a simple description of air quality to citizens.

The AQI is aimed at quickly disseminating air quality information real-time that entails the system to account for pollutants which have short-term impacts.

The AQI will prompt the local authorities to take quick action to improve air quality and is aimed at people's participation in the process. Citizens can avoid unnecessary exposure to air pollutants, the union environment ministry said.

This index was developed by an expert group comprising medical professionals, air quality experts, academia, NGOs, and state pollution control boards.