Delhi’s air quality worsens every Diwali but this year it has reached the ‘very severe’ category a day prior to the festival of lights. The government conveniently blames these high pollution levels on stubble burning by farmers of Punjab and Haryana but in a report released on Wednesday, the Centre for Science and Environment has come up with hard data to show that the contribution of farm fires to the rising PM2.5 levels in the capital region has been 16 per cent.

Delhi's 1.3 crore vehicles are primarily responsible for this pollution spike, especially because of the massive congestion on main arterial roads. The cities on the periphery of the capital such as Faridabad, Ghaziabad, Gurgaon, and Gautam Buddh Nagar must also take their share of the blame. The unrestricted use of firecrackers, despite the ban imposed by the Supreme Court, has muddied our air even further. It has been stated ad nauseam that 22 out of the world’s 30 most polluted cities are in India with Ghaziabad enjoying the dubious distinction of being the most polluted. Let’s face it. Our cities are in a royal mess.

A Niti Aayog report says that nearly 70 per cent of India’s water is contaminated, especially that coming from our main rivers. Waterborne diseases are rampant and we continue to have more than 1.5 million children succumbing annually to diarrhoea. The water supplied in our cities is sub-standard with its quality is known to deteriorate as the water travels through the trunk mains to service reservoirs.

The Economist Intelligence Unit’s 2022 “Global Liveability Index,” which looks at healthcare, environment, education, and infrastructure in 173 cities around the world, highlights. New Delhi is ranked 140, Mumbai 141, Chennai 142, Ahmedabad 143 and Bengaluru 146. This is all the more shocking because just 25 years ago, Bengaluru and New Delhi were considered “garden cities’ with a pleasant ambience that its residents found extremely endearing. Our hill stations were amongst the most beautiful and salubrious but all that has changed as these too have metamorphosed to become concrete jungles.