Despite the government pumping more than Rs 13,000 crore since 2019 over the implementation of the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP), India’s capital is one of the slowest movers in the nation’s pollution war. It could spend only 22 per cent of the money sanctioned since then. While Delhi’s air is three times dirtier than the safe threshold of 60 g/m (micrograms per cubic metre), for the rest of the country too, clean air remains a pipe dream.
Mixed results
The latest data from the Union ministry of environment, forests and climate change paints a conflicting picture nationwide. Mumbai reduced pollution by 44 per cent since 2019 while Kolkata improved only by 37 per cent. Cities with a smaller population, such as Bareilly and Varanasi, witnessed remarkable reductions—50-75 per cent.
But the progress has been uneven—PM10 (particulate matter with a diameter of 10 micrometers or less) levels are more than 30 per cent higher in Visakhapatnam and Maharashtra’s Aurangabad and Jalgaon than seven years ago.
Between 2017-18 and 2024-25, Mumbai led the four major metros in reducing PM10 concentrations, bringing levels down by 44 per cent—from 161 g/m to 90 g/m. Kolkata followed with a 37 per cent drop, lowering its average from 147 g/m to 92 g/m.
Delhi, despite being at the centre of India’s clean air conversation, managed just a 15 per cent decline, from a dangerously high 241 g/m to 203 g/m. Chennai saw the smallest improvement, with PM10 levels falling only 12 per cent, from 66 g/m to 58 g/m.
While policymakers concede that smog has reached “unhealthy levels” in more regions, they do not openly attribute fatalities to pollution. Asked about the impact of air pollution on public health during Question Hour in Parliament recently, the government said health effects depended on people’s diet, immunity and socio-economic factors, not just pollution.
Massive investment, limited returns
That hedging sits awkwardly with the huge taxpayer-funded investment. So far, Rs 9,200 crore has been used up from the Rs 13,036 crore issued to 130 cities over five years for battling pollution. But only 22 cities have attained PM10 levels safe for public health.
Delhi, despite its emergency response protocols to curb hazardous pollutants, old vehicle scrapping efforts and pollution monitoring, remains plagued by one of the highest PM concentrations. The monsoon season will be over soon and the time for burning the harvested crops to clear farms for new sowing will be here. So the city’s environment department has announced it would be attempting to cloud seed—a method generally used for fighting drought—to tackle the anticipated spike in air pollutants.
Uneven progress
Progress is steadier in other cities. Surat in Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh’s Raebareli, Kanpur and Lucknow have shown steady PM level improvement, though not as much to central funding as to better implementation and administration. For all the attention its air gets, Delhi, since 2019, has spent under Rs 14 crore of the Rs 62 crore the Centre allocated it under NCAP and the 15th Finance Commission.
But it’s not that there have been no interventions The government attributes the improvements to Bharat Stage VI fuel norms, vehicle scrapping policies, control of dust pollution at construction sites, provision of electric buses through the PM E-bus Sewa project as also cleaner brick kilns in the National Capital Region (NCR), switch of industrial units to piped natural gas (PNG) or biomass, and directives to power plants to burn crop residue.
Despite the claims, however, the Delhi government has yet to submit a common timeline to end the national Level 2, or ‘red’, rating of the Air Quality Index that stands above the 50 point level denoting safe air. No one is committing to a target number for the next five years.
As Delhi waits for the annual November smog season, its gamble on artificial rain is starting to resemble a meteorological version of throwing chaff in a desperate attempt to gain traction to create a short-term breathing room.
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