Delhi became the most polluted city in the country, Faridabad and Ghaziabad are also included in the list

Delhi Most Polluted City in India: The country's capital Delhi is at the forefront of the list of polluted cities of the country. According to the report of the National Clean Air Program (NCAP) tracker, in 2022 Delhi recorded PM 2.5 pollution which has decreased by 7.4% from 2019. Apart from this, it has decreased from 108 micrograms per cubic meter in 2019 to 99.71 micrograms per cubic meter in 2022. Ghaziabad and Noida, the top two cities in the 2019 list, registered a sharp improvement of 22.2% and 29.8%, respectively. In 2022, Ghaziabad's microgram per cubic meter is 91.3, while Faridabad's is 95.6 micrograms per cubic meter.

The Center launched the NCAP in 2019, with a target of reducing major (air pollutants) PM 10 and PM 2.5 by 20-30% in 131 "non-attainment" urban cities by 2024. The 2022 data was released on the NCAP's fourth anniversary and is available as the NCAP Tracker, released by Climate Trends and Respir Living Sciences. The capital's annual PM 10, which was recorded at 213 µg/cubic meter in 2022, is only a marginal improvement of 1.8% since 2017.

Away from reaching your goal

PM 10 levels have improved by 10.3% in Ghaziabad and 2.3% in Noida. The national safe level of PM10 is 60 µg/m3. Aarti Khosla, the director, of Climate Trends, said, "While the CPCB has already issued strict reduction targets for non-attainment cities, we are just one year away from the original target of 2024 for the NCAP. He added that many cities are still far from reaching their targets and may be unable to do so without plans and tough measures. Raunak Sutaria, founder and CEO of Respirar Living Science, said that the most harmful PM is for pollutants, which have different sources than PM 10, but minor improvements are taking place. He said that it shows that a lot of work needs to be done to reduce the source of pollution.

ASHNA