National Clean Air Programme: Just 4% of polluted cities covered under NCAP
Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) has found that just 130 cities were included under NCAP, and only 67 overlap with the 1,787 persistently non-attainment cities.
A new analysis by Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) has revealed that only around 4% of polluted cities in India are covered under the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP). Moreover, close to half (44%) of all Indian cities remain in chronic PM2.5 non-attainment, with no year of compliance recorded for over five consecutive years.
CREA held that this persistence of pollution highlights that the problem is year-around rather than episodic, driven by continuous emission sources from the transport, industry, and power plant sectors.
Widespread non-attainment beyond NCAP coverage
Using satellite data, CREA assessed PM2.5 levels in 4,041 Indian statutory towns. Of these, 1,787 exceeded the national annual PM2.5 standard in every year across five recent years (2019-2024), excluding the COVID-affected year of 2020. This means nearly 44% of Indian cities face chronic air pollution, indicating a structural problem driven by persistent emission sources rather than short-term episodes.
Yet, Indiaʼs flagship NCAP covers only a fraction of this burden. Just 130 cities were included under NCAP, and only 67 overlap with the 1,787 persistently non-attainment cities. As a result, NCAP currently addresses only 4% of Indiaʼs chronically polluted cities, leaving the vast majority outside targeted clean air action.
Uttar Pradesh leads with 416 cities in non-attainment, followed by Rajasthan (158), Gujarat (152), Madhya Pradesh (143), Punjab and Bihar (136 each), and West Bengal (124).
23 NCAP cities have increased PM10 levels
CREA says that out of 130 NCAP cities, 28 still lack continuous ambient air quality monitoring stations (CAAQMS), and among the 102 cities with stations, 100 cities reported 80% or higher PM10 data coverage.
The report says that progress on PM10 control remains mixed. Twenty-three cities have achieved the revised 40% PM10 reduction target, 28 cities have recorded 21-40% reduction, 26 cities show modest improvements of 1–20%, while 23 cities have in fact experienced an increase in PM10 levels since the program’s inception.
Indiaʼs most polluted cities in 2025
The PM2.5 assessment for 2025 ranks Byrnihat (Assam), Delhi, and Ghaziabad (Uttar Pradesh) as Indiaʼs top three most polluted cities with annual concentrations of 100 µg/m³, 96 µg/m³, and 93 µg/m³, respectively. Noida, Gurgaon, Greater Noida, Bhiwadi, Hajipur, Muzaffarnagar, and Hapur ranked as the 4th to 10th most polluted cities in India based on PM2.5 concentrations, says CREA.
For PM10, Delhi tops the list with an annual average of 197 µg/m³, three times the national standard. Ghaziabad and Greater Noida follow with averages of 190 µg/m³ and 188 µg/m³, respectively. Rajasthan has the highest number of cities in the Top 50, 18 in total, followed by Uttar Pradesh (10), Madhya Pradesh (5), and Bihar and Odisha (four each).
NCAP funding, mitigation measures
CREA held that since the programʼs inception, ₹13,415 crore has been released under NCAP and XV-Finance Commission grants, of which ₹9,929 crore (74%) has been utilised. Road dust management accounts for 68% of spending, followed by transport (14%) and waste and biomass burning (12%), while industries, domestic fuel use, public outreach (each <1%), and capacity building and monitoring (3%) received limited allocations.
Reported NCAP progress is largely concentrated on infrastructure and service measures such as road paving, mechanical sweeping, greening, and waste processing, while actions directly targeting emission reduction at source remain limited.
ʻIndiaʼs only way forward is to strengthen the countryʼs air quality governance through targeted, science-based reforms. This means prioritising PM2.5 and its precursor gases (SO2 and NO2) over PM10, revising the list of non-attainment cities under NCAP, setting stricter emission standards for industries and power plants, allocating funding based on source apportionment studies, and adopting an airshed-based approach to address air pollution at a regional scale,ʼ said Manoj Kumar, India Analyst, CREA.
