Meghalaya CM Blames Industries on Assam Side for Byrnihat’s Pollution

Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma attributed Byrnihat’s deteriorating air quality to industrial and other activities on the Assam side of the border while contesting a recent report ranking the town as the world’s most polluted city.

Byrnihat, an industrial hub straddling the Assam-Meghalaya boundary, lies about 30 km from Guwahati and 70 km from Shillong, serving as a gateway to the Meghalaya capital. Addressing the state Assembly on Thursday, Sangma said he has written to his Assam counterpart, seeking a joint action plan to tackle pollution in the town.

His statement comes in response to the World Air Quality Report 2024 by Swiss air monitoring company IQAir, which ranked Byrnihat as the most polluted city globally with an average PM2.5 concentration of 128.2 µg/m³—surpassing Delhi and Lahore. However, Sangma challenged the findings, citing data from the Meghalaya State Pollution Control Board (MSPCB).

“The data generated from four manual ambient air quality monitoring stations of the Meghalaya State Pollution Control Board (MSPCB) located at Byrnihat town, recorded the annual average PM2.5 concentration for 2024 as 50.1 microgram per cubic meter (μg/m3),” he said, adding that the MSPCB’s Air Quality Index (AQI) between January and the first week of March remained “satisfactory.”

Sangma further pointed out that air quality monitoring at the Central Academy for State Forest Service, located across the interstate boundary in Assam, recorded pollution levels ranging from “poor to very poor.”

“This indicates that the major sources of air pollution may be attributed to industrial and other activities on the Assam side,” he said, highlighting that the Assam part of Byrnihat hosts 20 “red category” industries, compared to just five on the Meghalaya side.