Bengaluru: Despite thousands of crores of public money being pumped into the government’s flagship National Clean Air Programme, it is floundering, a recent report shows. The Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA)’s assessment of the Programme since its inception in 2019 shows that while levels of particulate matter have dropped in some cities, it has in fact risen in others. Other issues plaguing the Programme include unmet targets, inadequate fund utilisation, skewed fund allocation, lack of valid data and more, per their report released on January 9. Put together, the data show that it is impossible for the NCAP to meet its 2026 target: to reduce particulate matter levels by 40% from baseline 2017 levels or meet the national air pollution standards. Responding to the report, senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said that it confirms India’s “worst-kept secret” of how the government is not effectively addressing air pollution in the country.India’s flagship clean air programme In 2019, the union government launched the National Clean Air Programme or NCAP. The aim was to achieve cleaner air in 131 ‘non-attainment cities’ — cities that had consistently not met the prescribed limits set by the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for major air pollutants such as particulate matter (PM10) and fine particulate matter (PM2.5). When it first kicked off, the target was to reduce PM10 concentrations by 20-30% by 2025, when compared to the baseline year of 2017. In 2022, the government revised the target, to achieve up to a 40% reduction in PM10 levels or to meet national standards (not more than an annual average of 60 µg/m³) by 2025-26.A team of researchers at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air assessed the progress made under the National Clean Air Programme from its inception. The researchers used data from several sources across seven years such as levels of PM2.5 and PM10 from the Central Pollution Control Board’s Continuous Ambient Air Quality Monitoring System, satellite imagery, and answers provided by the environment ministry in Parliament. The team also took into account various mitigation measures taken by the government to decrease levels of these pollutants, such as the deployment of electric buses, and the use of mechanical sweeping to decrease dust.Commuters ride past an anti smog gun spraying water to curb air pollution on a cold winter morning, in Gurugram, Haryana, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026. Photo: PTI.Increase in particulate matter levels The team’s report published last week highlights several crucial concerns regarding the implementation and efficacy of the NCAP so far.One is that particulate matter levels have actually risen in some cities – despite the implementation of the Programme. Out of 100 cities, 23 witnessed an increase in levels of particulate matter (PM10) since the NCAP began. While 77 cities reported a reduction in PM10 concentrations, 68 of them still had PM10 concentrations exceeding the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS).Another similar assessment of the NCAP from 2019 to 2023 published less than a year ago by scientists including Sarath Guttikunda also obtained similar results. It found that during this time, PM10 emerged more often (specifically, twice more often) as a major pollutant in Air Quality Indices of cities under the NCAP.Another concern that the CREA report highlighted is unmet targets – of several kinds. Even after seven years of the NCAP, only 51 cities achieved the initial target of 20-30% or higher PM10 reduction by 2025. Only 23 cities have achieved the revised target.The data shows that this revised target – to achieve a reduction in PM10 of up to 40% by 2026 compared to baseline levels of 2017 — is now impossible to meet.“Even at the end of the second extended NCAP implementation period, the fact that a majority of cities are still struggling to meet even the initial reduction targets makes it clear that the intended 40% reduction is no longer achievable within the programme’s lifetime,” the report noted.Guttikunda agrees. The scientist, who studies air pollution and is also the founder-director of Urban Emissions, a repository for information on air pollution and air quality, said that the original NCAP target of achieving a 20–30% reduction by 2025/2026 is “virtually impossible” to reach this year. He gave the example of Delhi.“If you examine the PM2.5 averages over the last six years, they have essentially hovered around 100 ug/m3. This means that despite any positive interventions in the city during this period, we have only managed to stabilise the concentration at that level; we have not seen the significant dips anticipated by the NCAP targets. It would be nothing short of magical if the city were to suddenly wake up and drop 20-30% of a critical pollutant like PM2.5 in a single year. Quite simply, that is not possible,” he told The Wire.Another unmet target is the number of monitoring stations deployed. The Programme was meant to have 1,500 manual air quality monitoring stations across the country by 2024. As 2025 wrapped up, it was short of this target by 465 stations. Among the 130 cities included under NCAP, only 102 had installed Continuous Ambient Air Quality Monitoring Stations (CAAQMS). Delhi, most polluted in 2025In 2025, out of 229 cities in India with 80% or more PM10 data, 190 cities exceeded the NAAQS for PM10, while only 39 cities met the standard.With regard to PM10, Delhi was the most polluted city with an annual average PM10 concentration of 197 µg/m³, followed by Ghaziabad (190 µg/m³) and Greater Noida (188 µg/m³). All 14 cities with more than 80% data available exceeded the safe limits set by the NAAQS. All cities under the NCAP in the states of Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Bihar, Haryana, Odisha, Punjab, West Bengal, Gujarat, Chandigarh, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Delhi, Jharkhand, Arunachal Pradesh and Telangana exceeded the permissible safe limits for PM10 as prescribed by the NAAQS.When it came to fine particulate matter or PM2.5 concentrations, only 128 of 231 cities (which provided more than 80% data) met the NAAQS standard. Byrnihat (Assam), Delhi, and Ghaziabad (Uttar Pradesh) were the top three most polluted cities in India, with annual PM2.5 concentrations of 100 µg/m³, 96 µg/m³, and 93 µg/m³ respectively. In the NCR, only 2 out of 14 cities (with data >80% days) met the NAAQS standard.Bihar witnessed some of the highest fine particulate matter pollution in the country last year: 20 out of 24 monitored cities in the state exceeded the NAAQS limits. Vehicles move past an Air Quality Index (AQI) monitor standing at 506, at Barakhamba Road, in New Delhi, Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025. Photo: PTI.Coverage under NCAPAnother issue is coverage under the Programme. Per the report, NCAP currently addresses only 4% of India’s “chronically polluted cities”.Using satellite data, CREA found that among the 4,041 cities across India, the annual mean PM2.5 concentrations across 1,787 cities consistently exceeded the national standards for five years.“This implies that about 44% of all Indian cities remain in a state of chronic PM2.5 non-attainment, with no year showing compliance during this period,” the report noted.There are problems with data too. Though the numbers of CAAQMSs increased in 2025, data quality was a concern due to poor maintenance and non-compliance with CPCB siting guidelines, the CREA report said.Inadequate fund utilisation The researchers also found “sub-optimal fund usage” that left “significant room for improvement”. Per the report, despite Rs 13,415 crore being released under the NCAP and XV-FC funds since inception, only Rs 9,929 crore has been utilised. This is a utilisation rate of just 74%.Some states, however, showed a high level of fund utilisation. Per the report, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Odisha utilised all their funds allocated for this, closely followed by Gujarat (98%), Uttar Pradesh (96%) and Uttarakhand (96%). In comparison, Delhi used just 33% of funds and was among the top five states that showed the worst fund utilisation across the country. Fund allocations were a problem as well.As much as 68% of the total funds were allocated to road dust management, while sectors crucial for air quality management like industries, domestic fuel and public outreach were allocated less than 1% for the last 3 years. Per the report, information obtained via the Right to Information Act showed that capacity building and monitoring also accounted for only 3% of the expenditure.“This skewed prioritisation indicates a lack of a comprehensive strategy to address pollution holistically, with critical areas like industries and power plants remaining underfunded despite their significant contribution to emissions,” the report noted.The “slow pace of fund disbursement” and implementation “raises concerns about the efficiency and effectiveness of NCAP in achieving its goals”, the report said.‘Structural disconnect’The researchers found what they called a “structural disconnect” between implementation progress under NCAP, and controlling emissions at source. “Overall, the pattern of implementation suggests a preference for activities that are easier to plan, fund, and report in physical terms, often through convergence with existing schemes. However, these actions are not, in themselves, sufficient pollution reduction measures,” the CREA report noted. Meanwhile, at least 40 cities still do not know the main sources of their pollution yet: only 90 out of 130 cities have completed source apportionment studies so far, per the report.One of the several recommendations put forth by the CREA report is that India prioritise PM2.5 and gases such as sulphur dioxide and ammonia over PM10. Guttikunda’s 2025 study also noted this. “A key conclusion of our assessment is the disproportionate emphasis on reducing PM10 pollution, particularly from road dust sources in cities. While there is some improvement in AQI values linked to PM10 and road dust management, this does not translate to overall air quality improvement in cities or regional airsheds,” it had noted.Commuters make their way as water droplets are sprayed through the new mist spray system, installed to curb air pollution, in New Delhi, Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025. Photo: PTI.Another recommendation in the CREA report is that India revise and include more cities in the list of non-attainment cities under NCAP. Enforcing emission load reductions through stricter, time-bound emission standards is also important, per the report, along with allocating funds based on source apportionment studies.Finally, adopting an ‘airshed approach’ for regional clusters is crucial, the report said. This is something several other experts have recommended too. An airshed is a geographical area in which the air functions as a single or homogenous unit especially in terms of dispersion of pollutants, due to reasons including meteorological factors. Last month, atmospheric scientist S.N. Tripathi, a professor at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur and dean of its Kotak School of Sustainability, flagged the importance of an airshed approach to tackle pollution especially in areas like New Delhi and the National Capital Region. Coordinating actions both within and across airsheds will make it easier to address poor air quality regionally, he had told The Wire. “India’s only way forward is to strengthen the country’s air quality governance through targeted, science-based reforms,” said Manoj Kumar, analyst with CREA, in a statement. “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.”India’s ‘worst-kept secret’Senior Congress leader and former union environment minister Jairam Ramesh said that the CREA report now confirmed what was India’s “worst-kept secret”: that air quality is a “nation-wide, structural crisis for which the Government response is exceedingly ineffective and inadequate”. In a statement on January 11, Ramesh said that the CREA report showed the “ineffectiveness of NCAP”, and that it had now become the “Notional Clean Air Programme”. “The first step must be to acknowledge the public health crisis linked to air pollution across wide swathes of India,” Ramesh said in a statement, adding that both the Air Pollution (Control and Prevention) Act of 1981 and the NAAQS have to be revisited and revamped. Apart from adapting PM 2.5 levels as the yardstick for performance for NCAP, the government must also increase the Programme’s funding, Ramesh said.“The current budget, inclusive of NCAP funding and the 15th Finance Commission’s grants, is about Rs 10,500 crores, spread across 131 cities! Our cities need at least 10-20 times more funding – NCAP must be made a Rs 25,000 crore program and spread across the 1,000 most polluted towns in the country,” he said.Deploy a ‘multi-pollutant’ strategyIndia needs to move away from its focus on PM10, and instead move towards a ‘multi-pollutant’ strategy, Guttikunda told The Wire.“It is vital that the focus shifts toward PM2.5 and towards a multi-pollutant strategy. When we discuss PM2.5, it does not exist in isolation. A significant portion of it is actually secondary in nature, formed from precursor gases such as SO2, NOx, VOCs [Volatile Organic Compounds], and ammonia. All of these contribute to the problem, and PM2.5 is the pollutant that most frequently exceeds safety standards in all available measurements. It is essential that the language in the next NCAP round evolves from the broad term ‘PM’ to a more rigorous ‘multi-pollutant’ strategy,” he said.The over-focus on PM10 has also created several discrepancies, with an official report using data from AQI bulletins suggesting that 95% of cities had improved PM10 levels, but the same pollutant emerging as a conditional or major pollutant more frequently — from 30% in the early years of NCAP, to 60-70% recently, Guttikunda said.“This is highly contradictory: a pollutant cannot be shown as ‘improving’ on a report card while simultaneously becoming the primary driver of poor air quality,” he said. “The math does not add up. This discrepancy likely stems from an over-focus on managing PM10 — specifically the dust component — making it the primary target for localized mitigation; and priority to track to show progress. There is a deeper story regarding how metrics are used, handpicked.”Moving forward into the next NCAP phase, two specific changes are a necessity, Guttikunda added.One is to develop accountable, year-on-year targets for both absolute concentrations and sector-wise contributions.“Second, the language of the program must shift to focus on all criteria pollutants – those responsible not just for PM levels, but for overall air quality,” Guttikunda commented.