Levels of particulate concentration in the air in the last financial year increased in 33 Indian cities covered under the National Clean Air Programme, a report by the Center for Research on Energy and Air has found.
Launched in 2019, NCAP aims to reduce PM 10 concentration in 130 cities by 40 percent. The deadline for the programme to achieve this target is 2025-26.
Published on Tuesday, the CREA report said that compared to the previous financial year, PM 10 levels decreased in 69 NCAP cities in FY 2024-2025. Despite these improvements, 91 out of the 102 NCAP cities with continuous ambient air quality monitoring stations still exceeded the PM 10 national standard, the report further said.
The report is authored by Nandikesh Sivalingam, who is the director and co-founder of CREA, and Manoj Kumar, a researcher who is also one of the experts guiding Newslaundry’s campaign against air pollution.
According to the report – which recorded particulate concentration for NCAP cities from April 1, 2024 to March 31, 2025 – at 206 micrograms per cubic metre, Delhi recorded the highest annual PM 10 concentration among all NCAP cities in the last financial year.
Delhi was followed by Byrnihat – an industrial town in the northeastern state of Meghalaya – where the annual PM 10 level reached 200 micrograms per cubic metre and Patna (180 micrograms per cubic metre), the report said. The annual PM 10 level for all three cities was more than thrice the national standard of 60 micrograms per cubic metre.
NCR cities Ghaziabad and Noida, were ranked as fourth and fifth most polluted cities, respectively, in the report.
On the bright side, compared to the NCAP baseline year of 2017-18, the capital had recorded a 15 percent reduction in PM 10 levels. At 78 percent, Uttar Pradesh’s Bareilly recorded the highest reduction in PM 10 levels since the baseline year. Overall, 10 cities in UP recorded an over 40 percent reduction in PM 10 levels.
In terms of PM 10 concentration, the report also ranked Bareilly as the cleanest NCAP city. Tamil Nadu’s Thoothukudi and Kalburagi in Karnataka were the second and third cleanest cities respectively.
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