Air quality in 7 cities has improved in last one year: Min | Bhubaneswar News
Bhubaneswar: There has been improvement in ambient air in seven Odisha cities in the past year only, forest minister Ganesh Ram Singh Khuntia told the assembly in a written reply on Tuesday. These cities had recorded high particulate matter (PM-10) in the air earlier.
The decade before 2024-25, the seven cities, including Bhubaneswar, were rated non-attainment cities for not meeting the National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS). The National Clean Air Policy (NCAP) targeted a reduction of PM-10 by 2026 by 40 per cent in non-attainment cities. Besides Bhubaneswar, other non-attainment cities are Angul, Talcher, Cuttack, Kalinganagar, Balasore, and Rourkela.
Athagarh MLA Ranendra Pratap Swain wanted to know from the forest minister which cities of the state have been enlisted as non-attainment cities as they didn’t meet NAAQS and what targets were given and what were the limits for particulate matter. He also asked whether the NCAP campaign programme was successful and effective in reducing pollution and air quality in the state.
“Though it was targeted by the State Pollution Control Board (SPCB) for incremental reduction of PM-10 every year, most of the corrective actions and fund utilisation occurred in 2022-23 and 2023-24. So, actual improvement in air quality started in 2024-25. The concentration of PM-10 has reduced in the air in five of the seven non-attainment cities,” said the minister in his written reply.
Giving comparative figures of improvement, the minister’s reply revealed that while in 2023-24 in Balasore, PM-10 was 124 micrograms per meter cube, in 2024-25, it reduced to 99. In Bhubaneswar, it came down to 87 from 114, in Cuttack 91 from 106, in the industrial town Kalinganagar, it dropped to 84 from 99, and in Rourkela, it came down to 104 from 111.
In Talcher and Angul, there is a marginal increase rather than a fall in pollution levels. “Various action plans approved under NCAP for implementation in the non-attainment cities are currently going on with the objective of improving air quality,” the minister said.
In Dec last year, the industrial town Angul in the state was rated the fourth most polluted city in the country in terms of ambient air pollution, with an AQI of 323. Talcher, its neighbour, took the sixth spot with an AQI of 302.
The decade before 2024-25, the seven cities, including Bhubaneswar, were rated non-attainment cities for not meeting the National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS). The National Clean Air Policy (NCAP) targeted a reduction of PM-10 by 2026 by 40 per cent in non-attainment cities. Besides Bhubaneswar, other non-attainment cities are Angul, Talcher, Cuttack, Kalinganagar, Balasore, and Rourkela.
Athagarh MLA Ranendra Pratap Swain wanted to know from the forest minister which cities of the state have been enlisted as non-attainment cities as they didn’t meet NAAQS and what targets were given and what were the limits for particulate matter. He also asked whether the NCAP campaign programme was successful and effective in reducing pollution and air quality in the state.
“Though it was targeted by the State Pollution Control Board (SPCB) for incremental reduction of PM-10 every year, most of the corrective actions and fund utilisation occurred in 2022-23 and 2023-24. So, actual improvement in air quality started in 2024-25. The concentration of PM-10 has reduced in the air in five of the seven non-attainment cities,” said the minister in his written reply.
Giving comparative figures of improvement, the minister’s reply revealed that while in 2023-24 in Balasore, PM-10 was 124 micrograms per meter cube, in 2024-25, it reduced to 99. In Bhubaneswar, it came down to 87 from 114, in Cuttack 91 from 106, in the industrial town Kalinganagar, it dropped to 84 from 99, and in Rourkela, it came down to 104 from 111.
In Talcher and Angul, there is a marginal increase rather than a fall in pollution levels. “Various action plans approved under NCAP for implementation in the non-attainment cities are currently going on with the objective of improving air quality,” the minister said.
In Dec last year, the industrial town Angul in the state was rated the fourth most polluted city in the country in terms of ambient air pollution, with an AQI of 323. Talcher, its neighbour, took the sixth spot with an AQI of 302.
