Not Delhi but Meghalaya’s Byrnihat emerges as India’s most polluted city for the year 2023

Guwahati, Jan 11: A recent study conducted by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) has identified Meghalaya’s Byrnihat as the top city facing significant pollution challenges for the year 2023, closely followed by Begusarai in Bihar and Greater Noida in Uttar Pradesh.

Interestingly, Delhi, often associated with severe winter air quality issues, ranked eighth on the list.

Sunil Dahia, South Asia's analyst at CREA, said 227 cities with air quality data available for over 75 percent of the days in 2023 were studied.

Among these cities, 85 were included under the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP). The data showed that 78 out of the 85 NCAP cities had PM10 levels exceeding the NAAQS (60 micrograms per cubic metre).

Launched in 2019, the National Clean Air Program (NCAP) has set a goal to achieve a 20-30 percent reduction in PM2.5 and PM10 concentrations by 2024. This target applies to 131 cities that failed to meet the prescribed air quality standards from 2011 to 2015.

A new target has now been set by the government of achieving a 40 percent reduction in particulate matter concentration in these cities by 2026.

“After five years of the NCAP implementation, only 44 cities out of the 131 non-attainment cities have concluded the source apportionment studies,” Dahia said.

“Due to the absence of these studies, 64 percent of the funds allocated under NCAP have been utilised solely for dust mitigation and ineffective solutions like smog guns, resulting in the inefficient use of public funds,” he added.

The CREA report revealed that only 37 NCAP-covered cities achieved PM10 levels below the annual targets set by the programme. Interestingly, in 2023, 118 cities not yet part of NCAP breached the national air ambient quality standards for PM10.

"This indicates that cities not included in NCAP aren't necessarily cleaner," Dahia emphasised.

Only seven of the 20 most polluted cities in India are currently under NCAP.

Byrnihat, covered under NCAP, registered the highest annual average PM10 concentration at 301 micrograms per cubic metre, while Silchar in Assam reported the lowest PM10 level at 29 micrograms per cubic metre in 2023.

Begusarai in Bihar (average annual PM10 level of 265 micrograms per cubic metre) and Greater Noida in Uttar Pradesh (228 micrograms per cubic metre) secured the second and third positions among the most polluted cities.

Among the top 50 polluted cities, 18 are in Bihar, eight in Haryana, and eight in Rajasthan.

The report highlighted that PM10 concentration in the top 10 polluted cities were notably 3-5 times higher than Indian NAAQS and exceeded WHO limits by 13–20 times.