Bengaluru at 27th spot, Indore tops the list in Centre's air pollution survey report

Indore tops the list while Bengaluru is at 27^th spot among 47 big cities in an all India air quality survey, the Union Environment and Forest Ministry said on Thursday releasing the report on the review exercises involving 131 big and small cities.

Indore is followed by Agra and Thane among the urban habitats in the category with more than 10 lakh residents as per the survey.

Three other Karnataka towns figure among the mid-level habitations with 3-10 lakh population, but their ranks are low. Gulbarga comes at the 27^th position out of 44 cities that were surveyed, whereas Hubli-Dharwad is at the 30^th position and Davanagere is at the 39^th spot.

These are among the results of the second edition of the Swachh Vayu Survekshan (clean air survey) under the National Clean Air Programme.

The annual exercise is carried out in three categories: cities with more than 10 lakh population (47), with 3-10 lakh population (44) and with less than 10 lakh headcount (40). The urban local bodies from each of the cities filed reports that were scrutinised by an expert panel and finally the Central Pollution Control Board awarded the ranks.

In the third category, two Himachal Pradesh towns – Parwanoo and Kala Amb bagged the first two slots while Angul in Odisha was at the third position. None of the last year’s winners was able to hold on to their winning positions this year.

The cities were assessed on the basis of their performance in curbing air pollution from biomass and municipal solid waste burning, road dust, construction dust and vehicular and industrial pollution as well as the action the municipal bodies have been taking to improve public awareness and reduce PM10 (bigger dust particles) level in the air.

Launched in 2019, the NCAP aims to reduce the fine and coarse dust particles from the air by 20 per cent by 2024.