RAIPUR: Chhattisgarh’s capital Raipur stood nowhere on the ‘Swachh Vayu Sarvekshan’ ranking last year brought in significant checks on its bad air quality, securing a rank 16 among 47 cities with a population of over 10 lakh in 2023.
Raipur’s air quality index improved in just one year. It has left behind cities such as Nagpur (18), Visakhapatnam (20), Kanpur (23), Lucknow (24), Bengaluru (25) and Pune (29). Raipur scored 169.5 out of 200 points in the survey by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change in 2022.
The survey was conducted by the Central Pollution Control Board under the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP). “Awareness drive and public participation helped to improve air quality in the capital. Air pollution has effectively gone down, owing to result-driven roles by authorities and local bodies.
More efforts will be directed towards targeted action on ensuring urban forest cover, better mitigation of road dust, check emissions, enhanced cleanliness drives with sustainable and productive waste
management model,” said Mayank Chaturvedi, commissioner of Raipur Municipal Corporation. The civic body authorities submitted its report on the best practices adopted under the eight different parameters specified under the NCAP.
‘Swachh Vayu Survekshan’ ranks cities on the basis of implementation of activities approved under city action plan and air quality in 131 NCAP cities, which are divided into three categories on the basis of their population, over 10 lakh (47 cities), between 3-10 lakh (44) and less than 3 lakh (40).
“The way the air quality of Raipur has improved is very encouraging. The coordinated efforts to control air pollution through the action plan yielded better results,” said Mayor Aijaz Dhebar.
The municipal corporation is soon going to operate electric buses as public transport, install electric vehicle charging stations, and take up more plantation drives towards environment conservation, officials said.
Indore in the adjoining Madhya Pradesh secured the first rank, followed by Agra in Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra’s Thane stood at third position in the category of cities above 10 lakh population.
