Lucknow falls 11 places in annual nat’l clean air survey | Lucknow News
Lucknow: State capital tumbled 11 places to secure 15th rank among 47 cities with population exceeding 10 lakh in Swachh Vayu Sarvekshan-2025. The city scored 179 out of 200 marks, a dip of 10 points from last year’s 189.The annual survey, conducted by Union ministry of environment, forest and climate change under National Clean Air Programme, evaluates cities on eight key parameters, including solid waste management, road dust management, vehicular emission control, industrial emission reduction and public awareness. Swachh vayu sarvekshan (clean air survey) does not directly measure real-time pollution level in a city. Instead, it ranks cities based on efforts taken by different departments — municipal corporations, pollution control boards, transport, and health departments — to reduce pollution and improve air quality. Lucknow ranked fourth in 2024 with 189 marks, after improving from 177.7 in 2022 when it topped the chart. The city opted out of the survey in 2023 due to accumulation of 20 tonnes of legacy waste.LMC environment officer Sanjeev Pradhan said multiple departments contribute to the scoring process, including nagar nigam, RTO, LDA and Green Gas. “We lost marks because of RTO data. The percentage of e-vehicles compared to total number of registered vehicles was less than the required 15–20 percent, leading to a deduction of six points. Another 10 points were deducted by CPCB which recorded presence of polluting industries in expansion area, contrary to our claim of none,” he said. Municipal commissioner Gaurav Kumar said the civic body was working on improving its performance.
