Delhi continued to be the top polluted city in the country in 2022 with an annual average of PM 2.5 concentration 99.7 micrograms per micrograms per cubic metre of air. An analysis of Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB)air quality data by the NCAP (National Clean Air Programme) tracker showed that PM2.5 pollution in the national capital has reduced by over 7 per cent in four years, from 108 micrograms per cubic metre in 2019 to 99.71 micrograms per cubic metre in 2022.
The analysis, which has been released Tuesday to mark four years of the launch of the NCAP by the Centre, has found that some of the top polluted non-attainment cities in 2019 have marginally improved their PM 2.5 and PM 10 levels but continue to breach CPCB’s standards. However, it still remains way below the desired level.
NCAP Tracker is a joint project of news portal Carbon Copy and a Maharashtra-based start-up 'Respirer Living Sciences' and is designed to track India's progress in achieving clean air targets. The Centre launched NCAP on January 10, 2019 to reduce PM2.5 and PM10 levels in 102 cities by 20 per cent to 30 per cent by 2024 (with 2017 being the base year). Some more cities were added to the list, while some were dropped subsequently.
Now there are 131 cities which are called non-attainment cities, as they did not meet the national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) for the period of 2011-15 under the National Air Quality Monitoring Programme In September 2022, the government set a new target of a 40 per cent reduction in particulate matter concentration by 2026.
The top four cities with the highest PM2.5 are Delhi and NCR cities and the top nine are from across the Indo-Gangetic plains, the data showed.
Among the most polluted cities with respect to PM2.5 levels, Delhi (99.71 micrograms per cubic metre) ranked first, Haryana's Faridabad (95.64 micrograms per cubic metre) ranked second and Uttar Pradesh's Ghaziabad (91.25 micrograms per cubic metre) third, according to the analysis of CPCB data.