Postoperative pulmonary complications (PPC) substantially increases the risk of morbidity, mortality, length of hospitalisation and has significant financial implications. Risks of postoperative pulmonary complications can be broadly divided into patient related, procedure related, anaesthesia related and postoperative care related. The prevention of PPC requires comprehensive multidisciplinary approach that include preoperative risk stratification and optimizations, intra-operative lung protective strategies, greater utilization of regional analgesia and avoidance of opioid analgesia, balancing intravenous fluid, minimising blood and blood product transfusion, fast tracking protocol for enhanced recovery, vigilance monitoring, physiotherapy and lung expansion manoeuvres including use of non-invasive ventilation in selected patients and other supportive care such as nutritional support, glycemic control, selective gastric drainage, thrombo-prophylaxis and early empirical antibiotic therapy in suspected infection and sepsis.