Smoke rises from the chimney from the factory in Delhi. File. | Photo Credit: Shiv Kumar Pushpakar
According to data shared by Foreign Minister for the Environment at Lok Sabha on Monday (21 July 2025), only about one of the five most polluted cities in India, Monday (July 21, 2025), according to data shared by Foreign Minister for Environment, Kirti Vardhan Singh at Lok Sabha in the National Clean Air Program.
NCAP, which was launched in 2019, was originally aimed at 20% -30% reduction in PM2.5 and PM10 levels by 2024 at the basic level of 2017. However, in 2022, the goal was revised to reach up to 40% of PM10 levels, without PM 2.5 or to meet national standards (60 Ug/m³) to 2025-26.
Of the 130 cities, the 48 million plus cities/urban agglomerations (populations greater than a million) are financed within the 15. A grant bound to a performance of 13,036.52 GBP for financing critical gaps was provided to 130 cities.
With the deadline for achieving the objectives set for March 2026, shared by the Ministry of the Environment show that with reference to the 2017-18 base line, only 25 of the 130 cities have reached a minimum 40% reduction in PM10 since 2024-25. On the other hand, there are also 25 cities that showed an increase in PM10 levels compared to 2017-18.
Four cities with the sharpest improvement (reduction) particle levels are Bareilly (76%), Varanasi (74.3%) and Firozabad (59.5%) in Uttar Pradesh and Dehradun (57.2%) in Uttarakkhand.
“In large Indian cities, the PM10 levels have been significantly improved,” Vardhan said in his answer in Lok Sabha. “Mumbai has shown an improvement in PM10 levels with a decrease in 44%in 2024-25 compared to FY2017-18, followed by Calcutta (37%), Delhi (15%) and Chennai (12%). WRT FY 2017-18.
A total of 103 cities have shown a decrease in PM10 concentrations in 2024-25 with respect to 2017-18 and 22 achieved 40% of the target and also maintained annual concentrations below 60 µg/m³.
Published – July 22, 2025 20:27
