BENGALURU: The Department of Civil Engineering at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) raised its objections and concerns over the method of conducting the Swachh Vayu Sarvekshan under the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP).
It listed a series of recommendations in a letter penned to Bhupender Yadav, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. Assessing the programme, it pointed to discrepancies, the marks given and the actual conditions on ground across the participating urban local bodies.
Ashish Verma, Professor and Convenor, IISc, Sustainable Transportation Lab, IISc, said the road conditions are not included while conducting the study and they do not match the marks awarded to the cities. The data collated by the Central Pollution Control Board, which also works under MoEFCC, has not been used while conducting the analysis, he pointed out.
Verma wondered why another study is needed when CPCB and state pollution control boards are already conducting one. He said the Air Quality Index (AQI) data assessed by CPCB is not in the Swachh Vayu Sarvekshan report.
As per the report, the maximum marks Bengaluru achieved for 2025-26 was 129, Lucknow’s was 374 and Delhi’s 408 in December 2025 and 362 in January 2026.
In the report -- Analysis of the Framework of Swachh Vayu Sarvekshan -- the IISc team stated that an analysis of the recent 2026 awards revealed a profound disconnect between administrative scores and ground realities. While top-tier cities score nearly 198 out of 200, actual air quality remains severe, with leading cities like Lucknow recording an Air Quality Index of up to 374 (during December 2025), classified as very poor. The report demonstrates that the current framework primarily measures compliance with procedural checklists rather than actual reductions in atmospheric pollution.
NCAP was launched to shift India towards proactive, data-driven air quality management across 131 non-attainment cities and Swachh Vayu Sarvekshan ranking framework was introduced to evaluate cities’ implementation of clean air measures.
The IISc team pointed to some key vulnerabilities in this ranking, including structural conflicts of interests, misaligned weightings, critical omissions of important contributors like agricultural residue, secondary particulate matter 2.5 (PM2.5) and precursor gas monitoring despite massive health impacts; and heavy reliance on administrative proxies rather than direct measurements like public transport, modal shifts and actual fuel switching.
It recommended to the ministry to redesign the framework by developing a comprehensive objective one featuring rigorous third-party on-ground verification, satellite data, cross-checks and active civil society participation. It also recommended to completely scrap the Swachh Vayu Sarvekshan because of major discrepancies in the approach and methodology.
