19/12/2025
🚨 Air Quality Alert | Amritsar 🚨
On 18 December 2025, around noon, while at Company Bagh, Amritsar, a space widely used for morning walks, yoga, cycling, and exercise, Dr. Rahul, Honorary Executive Member, Core Committee, Amritsar Forum for Clean Air under Doctors for Clean Air & Climate Action, decided to check the air quality amid the visibly rising pollution levels.
The readings were alarming.
📊 AQI ranged between 747–877, falling under the “Severe” category, a level considered hazardous for everyone, including healthy individuals.
🫁 What does this mean for health?
At such high AQI levels, fine particulate matter (PM2.5) penetrates deep into the lungs and enters the bloodstream, triggering inflammation, reducing lung function, increasing blood pressure, and placing immense strain on the heart. This can lead to breathlessness, chest tightness, persistent coughing, dizziness, fatigue, and increased risk of heart and respiratory emergencies.
For children, elderly people, pregnant women, and individuals with asthma, COPD, or heart disease, the risks are significantly higher — including hospitalization and long-term damage.
⚠️ Exercising in severely polluted air does not protect health.
During physical activity, deeper and faster breathing allows more pollutants to enter the lungs and bloodstream, worsening health outcomes rather than improving them.
🌫️ The larger context:
Punjab lies in the Indo-Gangetic Plains, a region where geography and weather conditions trap pollutants for long durations. While air pollution discussions often focus on Delhi, cities like Amritsar are facing a silent yet severe public health crisis that remains largely unnoticed.
🫁 Clean air is not a just a environmental issue. It is a public health emergency.
