In top ‘clean’ cities, air is not so fresh, data shows | India News

NEW DELHI: Indore may be the cleanest city in India, having secured the top rank seven times in a row, but when it comes to air quality, it reported a 21% rise in the level of the pollutant PM10 in 2023-24 compared to 2017-18. The city joined 30 others including Navi Mumbai, Vizag, Cuttack, Guwahati, Gwalior, Patna, Raipur, Chandigarh and Bhopal that reported increase in the level of annual average particulate matter (PM10) – a critical air pollutant – during that period.
All these 31 cities are in the list of 130 which are under National Clean Air Programme (NCAP), launched by environment ministry in Jan 2019 with an aim to improve air quality by reducing PM10 up to 40% by 2025-26 from the 2017-18 level or achieving the national standards during the period.
Incidentally, Navi Mumbai was the third ranker and Vizag fourth in the list of cleanest cities after Indore and Surat in 2023. This ranking is based on the cities performance in terms of their performance in sanitation and municipal waste management. On the air quality front, Vizag reported 58% increase (second worst in the list of 31) in level of PM10 in FY 2023-24 compared to FY 2017-18 while Navi Mumbai reported 11% increase during the period.
Surat, on the other hand, reported 21% reduction in the level of air pollutant in 2023-24 compared to 2017-18 but the city’s PM10 continues to be much higher than the acceptable limit of 60 g/m3. Though both kinds of cleanliness – sanitation/waste and air – cannot be compared due to the very different nature of the problem, it shows that the efforts on one front may not make cities liveable unless air quality is also be taken care of by dealing with multiple other factors in neighbouring areas or in a region.
On a positive note, the comparative data on level of pollutant shared by environment ministry in the Parliament, shows 97 out of 130 cities have shown improvement in air quality in terms of annual average PM10 concentrations in FY 2023-24 compared to FY 2017-18.
Though 55 cities have achieved reduction of 20% or more during the period, most of them still reported higher level of pollutant than the acceptable standards. Varanasi turned out to be the best performer by reducing level of PM10 by 68%highest percentage reduction in the list of 97 – but the city still has higher level of pollutant than national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS).
Total 18 out of 130 cities conform to the national ambient air quality standards in terms of PM10 during 2023-24. Among big cities, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Delhi, Nagpur, Chennai and Surat are among others which have shown improvement but their pollutant levels are still not good enough to meet the annual average acceptable limit.