Swachh Vayu Survekshan (SVS) 2025:
Indore, India’s cleanest city, topped the ‘Swachh Vayu Survekshan 2025’ for air pollution mitigation, despite a slight PM10 increase.
- SVS is an annual survey conducted by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) under the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP).
- It is structured as a rigorous, multi-tiered evaluation mechanism, founded on comprehensive due diligence under the NCAP.
- The programme is conducted annually for 130 cities under NCAP to promote healthy competition among cities and encourage them to take expeditious actions to improve air quality.
- The SVS assesses cities on eight key parameters, including road dust mitigation, solid waste management, vehicular and industrial emission control, C&D waste handling, and public awareness, as well as measurable improvements in particulate matter levels.
- Highlights of SVS 2025:
- Indore topped the list of million-plus-population cities in the SVS 2025. Jabalpur and Agra/Surat followed.
- It has put Navi Mumbai at 4th position, Kanpur at 5th, Bhopal at 6th, Allahabad at 7th, Chandigarh at 8th, Ahmedabad, Pune, and Nagpur at
- 10th, Varanasi and Raipur at 11th, Lucknow at 15th, Hyderabad at 22nd, Mumbai at 25th, Jaipur at 26th, Delhi at 32nd, Bengaluru at 36th, Kolkata at 38th, and Chennai at 41st in the list of million-plus-population cities.
- Amravati secured first rank in the 3-10 lakh population category, followed by Jhansi and Moradabad (joint second rank) and Alwar (third rank).
- In the third category of cities (population under 3 lakh), Dewas (MP) secured first rank, followed by Parwanoo (Himachal Pradesh) and Angul (Odisha).
- PM10 levels went down in 103 out of the 130 cities under NCAP.
- Mumbai registered the highest decline of 44% in PM10 level in 2024-25 compared to 2017-18. It was followed by Kolkata (37%), Hyderabad and Bengaluru (26% each), Delhi (15%), and Chennai (12%) among the six big metro cities.
- Though a total of 22 out of the 130 cities have met the national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) by reporting annual average PM10 concentrations of less than 60 micrograms per cubic metre (μg/m3), Chennai is the only big metro that met the acceptable limit, recording an annual average of 58 μg/m3.
