As per the World Air Quality Report 2020, India was ranked the third most polluted country in the world with an annual average PM2.5 concentration of 51.9 µg/m³. Bangladesh was named the most polluted country, followed by Pakistan in second place.
India showed an overall improvement in several cities, with 63% reporting direct improvements over 2019 averages. Progress is only marginally attributable to India’s flagship National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) introduced in January 2019, which targets PM2.5 reductions between 20-30% in 122 selected cities by 2024 from a 2017 baseline.
Despite some improvement, India continues to dominate annual PM2.5 rankings by the city as 22 of the top 30 most polluted cities globally are located in India.
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