Five years since the National Clean Air Programme was launched, Varanasi has shown the highest reduction in PM2.5 and PM10 levels.
When launched in 2019, the programme’s initial target was to reduce PM10 and PM2.5 (ultra-fine particulate matter) by 20 to 30 per cent by 2024. The initial investment was Rs 9,631.23 and the target was to monitor 131 cities.
A revision of the programme’s initial target to a 40 per cent reduction in particulate matter concentration by 2026 is the new ambitious goal.
Varanasi, which is Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s constituency, shows a 72 per cent reduction in PM2.5 (from 96 ug/m 3 to 26.9 ug/m 3) and a 69 per cent reduction in PM10 (from 202.5 ug/m 3 to 62.4 ug/m 3). This puts the city ahead of the 2026 targets.
Other cities with remarkable reduction include Agra (53 per cent), Kanpur (50 per cent), Jodhpur (50 per cent), Meerut (42 per cent), Odisha (39 per cent) and Kalaburagi (32 per cent) (91.2 ug/m 3 to 61.7 ug/m 3 ). It is notable that most of these cities fall in UP.
Cities experiencing the highest increase in PM2.5 from 2019 to 2023 include Navi Mumbai (46 per cent), Ujjain (46 per cent) and Mumbai (38 per cent).
While Delhi tops the list of most polluted, Patna, Faridabad, Muzaffarpur, Noida, Meerut and Ghaziabad follow closely in PM2.5 levels. In PM10 levels, Patna stands above Delhi followed by Faridabad, Muzaffarpur, Noida, Meerut and Ghaziabad.
While the least polluted cities in 2023 recorded PM2.5 levels meet the Central Pollution Control Board's (CPCB’s) annual average safe limit; these remain higher than the World Health Organization’s limit of safe. This highlights the ongoing challenges in achieving internationally recognised air quality standards.
The analysis done by Climate Trends notes that reductions in PM levels across cities can be attributed to various factors, including a city’s location, diverse sources of particulate matter emissions, and meteorological conditions. Furthermore, the longer particulate matter resides in the atmosphere, the more it contributes to the levels of PM in those areas. The analysis is hampered by non-availability of continuous data.
For the purpose of this analysis, PM2.5 and PM10 data for 131 cities was sourced from the Central Pollution Control Board’s (CPCB’s) Continuous Ambient Air Quality Monitoring Stations (CAAQMS) network. An uptime filter of 50 per cent was applied to the data from all monitoring stations for 2023. Only those monitors with pollution data available for at least half of the year, or six months, were considered for the analysis.
