Ghaziabad most polluted city in India followed by Delhi

Tags: National News

In a recently published analysis report, Ghaziabad is ranked as the most polluted city in India out of the 132 non­attainment cities with the highest levels of PM 2.5 and PM 10 followed by Delhi.

• The analysis is by NCAP Tracker, a joint project by news portal  Carbon Copy and a Maharashtra ­based start­up ‘Respirer Living Sciences’, designed to track India’s progress in achieving the clean air targets
• These cities are referred “non­attainment” as they consistently fail to meet the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) over a five-year period.
• For the PM 2.5 levels the CPCB’s safe limit is 40 ug/m3 and WHO’s safe limit is 5ug/m3
• Based on the Continuous Ambient Air Quality Monitoring System (CAAQMS) data, Delhi’s PM 2.5 levels dropped from 108 ug/m3 in 2019 to 102 ug/m3 in 2021 and its PM 10 levels reduced from 217 ug/m3 to 207 ug/m3 during the same period after continuous monitoring.

National Clean Air Programme (NCAP)

• The Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change (MoEFCC) launched National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) in 2019 as a long-term, time-bound, national-level strategy to tackle the air pollution problem across the country in a comprehensive manner with targets to achieve 20% to 30% reduction in Particulate Matter concentrations by 2024 keeping 2017 as the base year for the comparison of concentration.
• The city-specific action plans have been prepared which, inter-alia, include measures for strengthening the monitoring network, reducing vehicular/industrial emissions, increasing public awareness, etc.

For detail about PM 2.5 and PM 10 kindly see December 1, 2021 post.