Toxic Air, Unsafe Water, Collapsing Health System: WHO’s Brutal Reality Check for India

X: @vivekbhavsar

New Delhi: The World Health Organisation (WHO) has delivered a ruthless reality check to India’s government. In its latest Health and Environment Scorecard, India scrapes a mediocre 57 out of 100, exposing a nation drowning in negligence, political apathy, and hollow promises.

This is not a policy report. It is a red alert.

India is staring at a full-blown environmental health emergency, but the government remains busy polishing its PR optics while millions choke, suffer, and die. According to the WHO, India’s air pollution levels are beyond catastrophic. The national average of PM2.5 is ten times higher than what the human body can safely tolerate. Indians are breathing in a staggering 50 micrograms per cubic metre of poison, while the WHO says the safe limit is just 5. The result? Thirty-nine per cent of all deaths from stroke and heart disease are now directly linked to air pollution. This is not a statistic—it is a national massacre.

Despite this, India is nowhere near the WHO air quality standards. The laws exist on paper, but enforcement is non-existent. Paper policies don’t clean the air. Gas masks won’t save a nation that refuses to act.

Adding insult to injury, the government continues to trumpet the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana as a flagship achievement. It boasts of releasing 1.60 crore LPG connections under Ujjwala 2.0 by December 2022, and further claims that the release of an additional 75 lakh connections for the period FY 2023-24 to 2025-26 was successfully achieved by July 2024. As of March 1, 2025, the government states that the total number of active domestic LPG consumers in India stands at 32.94 crore, including 10.33 crore so-called Ujjwala beneficiaries.

But the WHO report tears this propaganda apart. The ground reality is brutal—26% of Indians still cook on wood, coal, and biomass, poisoning themselves every day inside their homes. The so-called gas revolution is a grossly overstated narrative. Connection numbers may look grand in press releases, but the kitchens of rural India tell a different story. Rural women continue to inhale toxic smoke while politicians flaunt distribution figures. Access is one thing. Sustained, safe usage is another—and on that front, India is failing spectacularly.

In 2025, nearly half of India will still live without access to safe sanitation. Forty-eight per cent of the population lacks basic hygiene. The price? Sixty-six per cent of all diarrhoeal deaths are caused by contaminated water, open defecation, and poor hygiene. Yet, the government has no real-time data, no transparent monitoring, and no credible funding plan to fix this. The WASH (Water, Sanitation, Hygiene) sector is in shambles. Instead of solutions, politicians are busy selling slogans.

India’s climate policy is an unmitigated disaster in slow motion. On global stages, ministers preach climate leadership. Back home, eighty-two per cent of India’s energy consumption still comes from fossil fuels and biomass. There is no updated climate-health vulnerability assessment. India has ignored COP26 health commitments, made no effort to align health systems with net-zero goals, and treats heatwaves and floods as seasonal inconveniences—not public health crises. Climate-linked deaths are rising, but India remains in policy denial.

The same doublespeak infects biodiversity conservation. India claims to champion environmental protection but the WHO exposes the truth: only 4% of India’s land and marine areas are protected, a shameful gap compared to the global 30% target by 2030. Yes, India reports a 13% increase in forest cover from 1990 to 2020, but real ecological protection is absent. A post-COP15 biodiversity action plan exists—on paper only.

Meanwhile, Indian children continue to suffer from lead poisoning, a silent killer the country refuses to confront. The average blood lead level in children under five is 5 micrograms per decilitre, enough to cause permanent brain damage. Legal limits on lead paint exist, but enforcement is patchy. Millions of children remain at risk. India is a party to the Minamata Convention on Mercury, but mercury pollution continues unchecked in several sectors.

In radiation preparedness, India scores full marks—100 per cent in emergency protocols. But on everyday radiation risks, the country is asleep at the wheel. There are no national rules on electromagnetic field exposure, no regulations on artificial tanning, and no radon control in homes. The government is prepared for a nuclear accident but ignores the daily invisible hazards that quietly harm people.

Worker safety in India is another area of systemic neglect. Eighty-nine per cent of Indian workers are in the informal sector, without any safety nets. Ten per cent of the workforce is trapped in overwork, logging more than 55 hours a week—pushing them toward strokes, heart disease, and mental breakdowns. The death toll is staggering: 36 out of every 100,000 workers die annually from occupational diseases, 8 out of every 100,000 from workplace injuries. Despite this, India has not ratified a single major international labour safety convention. Worker protection remains a blind spot in India’s policy framework—conveniently ignored for decades.

The WHO also flags a terrifying data black hole in India’s healthcare infrastructure. There is no national record of which hospitals lack clean water, sanitation, power, or waste management. This is not bad governance—it is criminal negligence. India’s health system is under-equipped, under-documented, and millions are left to fend for themselves without even the most basic medical security.

The WHO’s 2025 Scorecard is not just a report—it is a damning charge sheet. India is poisoning its air, ignoring its sick, letting its workers die, exposing its children to toxins, and sleepwalking into a climate catastrophe. This is not about lack of awareness—it is about lack of political will and deliberate policy inaction.

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If India wants to claim global leadership, it must first stop killing its citizens slowly—through toxic air, dirty water, unsafe jobs, and a collapsing public health system. The time for cosmetic announcements is over. Action is overdue. Lives are at stake.