A recent viral incident in Gurugram summed up the city’s worsening air quality crisis. During a general knowledge quiz, a local student was asked to list essential commodities in his home. His top two choices? An air purifier and a high-end face mask. When asked why, he innocently explained to his teacher: “My parents say these will keep me and my grandfather alive until we move to a new home in the mountains.”

This is not just the story of one child — it reflects the grim reality of 25 lakh residents of Gurugram, often dubbed the “face of Haryana.” Here, clean air is a luxury, and the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) is a recurring fixture for nearly eight months a year.

Though Gurugram first became familiar with the term “smog” around 2015-16, it officially entered the world pollution map in 2018. That year, a report by IQAir, a global air quality monitoring platform, and Greenpeace ranked it as the most polluted city in the world — with air quality 17 times worse than the World Health Organisation (WHO)’s prescribed safe limits.