India sets its own air quality norms, and global rankings released by various organisations like World Health Organisation (WHO) carry no official sanction, the Centre told Parliament on Thursday (December 12).

Further, the government also said that air quality guidelines are advisory in nature and do not constitute binding standards for the country.

As air pollution continues to pose a huge challenge, the government made this statement in the Rajya Sabha, in response to a query about India’s position in global indices such as IQAir’s World Air Quality Ranking, the WHO Global Air Quality Database, the Environmental Performance Index (EPI), and the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) metrics.

Advisory tools

According to minister of state for environment, Kirti Vardhan Singh, WHO guidelines s

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