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Pollution led to more than 2.3 million premature deaths in India in 2019, BBC News reports, citing a new Lancet study.

Nearly 1.6 million deaths were due to air pollution alone, and more than 500,000 were caused by water pollution.

The latest Lancet Commission on pollution and health report blamed pollution for nine million - or about one in six - deaths globally.

It said India - where bad air kills more than a million people every year - remained among the worst affected.

In an update of a 2015 estimate on premature deaths caused by pollution, the Lancet study said that data from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries and Risk Factors Study 2019 (GBD) showed that pollution "remains responsible for approximately nine million deaths per year."

Although there has been a decline in deaths attributable to types of pollution associated with extreme poverty such as household air pollution and water pollution, this fall has been offset by increased deaths caused by industrial pollution, ambient air pollution and toxic chemical pollution.

Globally, air pollution - both ambient and household - was responsible for 6.7 million deaths in 2019. Water pollution was responsible for 1.4 million deaths and lead pollution caused 900,000 premature deaths.

The study found that more than 90% of pollution related deaths occurred in low-income and middle-income countries, with India topping the list with 2.36 million and China at number two with 2.1 million deaths.