A Global Digital Gateway? Is it?

Year after year, the citizens of Vizag, trapped with the poison in the air they breathe, are left asking, what is the government actually doing to fix this human-made disaster?

By Our Copy Desk

As the State government peddles Vizag as a ‘global digital gateway’, the city itself is gasping for breath. Toxic levels of air pollution have made life unliveable in the city, yet, the government’s response remains paralysed, indifferent to the daily suffering of its citizens.

As winter settles over the city, the Air Quality Index (AQI), the benchmark for air safety, has breached all permissible limits, turning the city’s air into a slow, silent poison. A recent media report ranks Vizag’s pollution levels among the highest in the country!

This acutely distressing situation is not a seasonal menace, though the problem clearly exacerbates in winter. Concentrations of toxic gases and fine particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10) are soaring far beyond safety thresholds.

This is not an accident of weather but the result of structural failure. It is a saga of misplaced priorities, years of neglect, of prioritising industrial profits over human lives, shameful official inaction and a blatant disregard for the citizens’ fundamental right to a safe and healthy environment. The government’s new slogan of ‘speed of doing business’ has turned into a license for unchecked pollution and regulatory collapse.

Over years, Vizag’s residents have been choking on polluted air with respiratory illnesses soaring. Across the city, citizens are struggling with clogged noses, sore throats and burning, itchy eyes. Asthma attacks, chronic bronchitis and a host of pollution-induced ailments are surging at an alarming rate.

Worst off are areas around industrial emissions and high traffic zones.

Each winter, thermal inversions and scant rainfall trap pollutants close to the ground, pushing AQI levels to perilous peaks. This is not a passing inconvenience, but a full-blown public health and human rights emergency.

Indeed, year after year, citizens are left asking, with depressing regularity, what is the government actually doing to fix this crisis?

Despite repeated public appeals, official responses remain indifferent and tepid. There is still no long-term preventive strategy, only occasional ad hoc, cosmetic gestures that do nothing to reduce the worsening pollution.

Air quality data, when shared at all, arrives delayed, is patchy or deliberately opaque. And to top it all we have regulatory bodies like the AP Pollution Control Board that neither enforce the law nor hold polluters to account.

They have often acted in ways that allegedly protect violators and enable impunity by betraying their statutory mandate to protect public health and the environment. Such abdication of responsibility amounts to complicity in the public health crisis now engulfing the city.

The government continues to trivialise the crisis, rather than investing in green infrastructure including a robust and extensive public transport network, stringent emission controls, industrial accountability and effective pollution monitoring. This is not a natural calamity but a human-made disaster caused by apathy and neglect.

There is still no comprehensive clean-air plan, no timely alerts, no designated low-emission zones and no sustained public advisories. Those violating norms operate with impunity, often shielded by official inaction. Such neglect is a serious abdication of the State’s duty to safeguard public health and the environment thereby causing severe health repercussions for countless residents.

In the absence of reliable data and precise measurements, the full human cost of Vizag’s toxic air remains hidden. Yet, even the limited available evidence leaves little doubt that thousands are dying prematurely in silence as the city breathes poison every day.

The impact is especially severe on children, the poor and elderly as well as those already battling pre-existing health conditions.

The latest World Health Organisation (WHO) Global Air Quality Guidelines (AQGs) offer unequivocal evidence that air pollution harms human health even at concentrations once considered safe. Scientific research now confirms that brief exposure to PM2.5 and PM10, even at low levels, increases the risk of respiratory disease, heart failure and neurological damage.

The worsening air quality crisis demands urgent and resolute intervention. The government’s persistent inaction and staggering neglect constitute a grave abdication of its responsibility towards the well-being of citizens.

The Human Rights Forum (HRF) and Greater Visakhapatnam Citizens’ Forum (GVCF) call upon the authorities concerned to urgently implement concrete, transparent, verifiable and time-bound measures to halt the ongoing breach of air quality standards. A rapid and just transition to clean energy and sustainable mobility is absolutely essential to avert further harm.

We also urge the Central Pollution Control Board to revise the country’s ambient air quality standards in line with the current scientific evidence and align them with the updated WHO AQGs so that the policy reflects reality and not denial.

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Statement issued by:

VS Krishna, HRF, AP&TG Coordination Committee member.

Sohan Hatangad, President, Greater Visakhapatnam Citizens’ Forum (GVCF).

 12-12-2025

Visakhapatnam

Photos and graphic image courtesy VS Krishna