In March of 2013, Greenpeace India and Conservation Action Trust commissioned a report by Urban Emissions demonstrating the health impacts from coal fired power plants. That analysis found between 80,000 and 115,000 people die every year from coal plant pollution in India.
To better understand why air pollution is having such a negative impact on our population, we undertook a subsequent analysis comparing Indian power plant air emissions standards with those of China and Japan. We found that Indian air quality standards are anywhere between four and twenty times worse than those in China, a country which hit international headlines a few months ago for choking air pollution in major cities. We hope these findings spur a vigorous debate on the urgent need to strengthen Indian pollution standards in order to protect the lives of hundreds of thousands of Indians