India’s worst air? No surprises here as Ghaziabad leads, Delhi and Noida follow

NEW DELHI: India's winter air pollution crisis showed no signs of easing in Jan and NCR dominated the pollution rankings. Nearly half of the country's monitored cities have recorded PM2.5 levels above the national safety standards. According to an analysis by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), Ghaziabad has emerged as India's most polluted city in Jan, followed by Delhi, then Noida, Gurgaon and Greater Noida.With a staggering monthly average PM2.5 concentration of 184 g/m³ - three times over the national limit - Ghaziabad, which is consistently among the most polluted pockets of NCR, breached daily standards on every single day of the month.

Delhi followed closely at 169 g/m³, recording 27 days of very poor or severe air quality.Other cities in the top 10 most polluted list included Dharuhera in sixth place, Singrauli, Bhiwadi, Narnaul and Gangtok. Uttar Pradesh and Haryana alone accounted for six of these 10 cities.Of the 248 cities with reliable air quality data, 123 breached India's National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for fine particulate matter.

Not a single city met the World Health Organization's (WHO) daily safe guideline, underlining the scale of the public health challenge posed by polluted air.The problem cuts across both National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) cities and those outside it. Among the 97 NCAP cities with sufficient data, 46 exceeded India's daily PM2.5 standards. A similar trend was seen in non-NCAP cities, where 77 crossed the national limit and all 151 exceeded the global benchmark.At the state level, Rajasthan topped the list, with 23 of its 34 monitored cities exceeding the PM2.5 standard. Haryana, Bihar, Odisha, and Uttar Pradesh also reported widespread non-compliance.Nationally, air quality remained skewed towards unhealthy scores. Only 21 cities recorded good' air, 103 fell under satisfactory and 92 under moderate. Another 32 cities were classified as poor or very poor.Damoh in Madhya Pradesh has emerged as the cleanest city, with an average PM2.5 level of 17 g/m³.

Five of the 10 cleanest cities are in Karnataka.Among megacities, Delhi and Kolk-ata exceeded national limits, while Chennai, Mumbai, and Bengaluru stayed within them.Calling for urgent action, CREA said the upcoming revision of the National Clean Air Programme must prioritise PM2.5, tighten industrial emission norms, and adopt an airshed-based approach to tackle pollution beyond city boundaries.'To mitigate this recurring and year-long pollution, the revision of the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) presents a key opportunity to strengthen India's air quality management. This revision must focus on prioritising PM2.5 and its precursor gases (SO2 and NO2) over PM10, revising the list of non-attainment cities, setting stricter emission standards for industries and power plants, and adopting an airshedbased approach to address air pollution at a regional scale," said Manoj Kumar, India analyst at CREA.