Hyderabad
Environmental advocacy group Greenpeace has come up with an analysis of pollution levels in ten major cities in South India. According to the report, Vishakapatnam and Hyderabad are the most polluted cities and the citizens here are breathing toxic air.
The report says all the ten major cities suffer due to pollution and the PM2.5 and PM10 levels of all the cities are well above the recommended World Health Organisation (WHO) limits in all the cities. The pollution levels are still over the WHO's limits even with relatively lower economic activity and vehicular emissions due to the Lockdowns in 2021.
Both the cities are the worst affected cities with their PM2.5 levels increasing by 7 to 8 times the WHO guidelines. Hyderabad is the second-worst while Vishakapatnam is ranked one. The report has been prepared to analyze the CPCB data from Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Vishakapatnam, Mysuru, Mangalore, Coimbatore, Kochi, Puducherry, and Amaravati have been analyzed over a period of one year, from November 2020 to November 2021.