Gurgaon: Faridabad has stayed far from meeting national clean-air standards but half of its anti-pollution budget lies unused.The city utilised Rs 53.2 crore of Rs 107 crore — just under 50% — released to it under National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) so far, fresh govt data accessed by TOI shows.While Faridabad had remained a ‘non-attainment city’ under NCAP for seven years, the underutilisation has persisted. The city repeatedly failed to meet the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) even though it has managed to cut its PM10 levels by nearly a third over the past five years.Annual PM10 readings show that the city made some progress, but the improvement remains inconsistent and still far from the NAAQS annual permissible limit of 60 µg/m³. The latest figure — 153 µg/m³ in 2024-25 — marks a 33% reduction from 2020-21 levels (209), but PM10 concentration remains over 2.5 times higher than the national standard.“The city cannot afford to leave half its NCAP funds idle,” said Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) analyst Manoj Kumar.Kumar added, “It is important to assess how these funds contributed to reductions in PM10 levels and identify the measures that delivered the most impact. This can help strengthen future implementation by ensuring resources are directed towards interventions that provide long-term improvements in air quality.”Faridabad’s annual PM10 readings show a gradual but uneven improvement over the past five years. The concentration stood at 229 µg/m³ in 2020-21, dropping to 209 µg/m³ in 2021-22, before rising slightly to 212 µg/m³ in 2022-23. The city recorded a more noticeable improvement thereafter, with the level declining to 190 µg/m³ in 2023-24.An earlier analysis by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) found that Faridabad achieved only a 17% reduction in PM10 by 2024 when compared to the baseline year (2020-21), as the city did not have continuous PM10 data before that.Much like earlier years, most of the utilised NCAP funds went into dust control measures — including mechanised road sweeping, water sprinklers, black-topping of stretches and pavement of roads. Less than 1% of NCAP money previously went into tackling industrial pollution, CSE found in an RTI-based analysis.Founder and lead analyst at think-tank Envirocatalysts Sunil Dahiya said, “The absence of emission load reduction targets for key contributing sectors within cities and their broader airsheds, coupled with a lack of clearly demarcated accountability, explains why we didn’t witness systematic, aggressive air quality improvements. NCAP 2.0 must change this by leveraging available data and tools to empower govts, administrations, and polluting sectors alike to take aggressive emission load reduction at source.“A senior Municipal Corporation of Faridabad (MCF) official said the focus on dust control was deliberate. “Most industries in Faridabad have already been moved out of NCR. That is why spending is higher on traffic management and preventing dust resuspension. Funds were also used for creating EV charging infrastructure and skill development for officials,” the official said. The city also spent part of the allocation on public awareness campaigns and afforestation efforts.Researchers say Faridabad’s incremental improvement in PM10 levels is welcome but insufficient — especially considering the scale of pollution sources and the substantial funds still unutilised.
