102 cities to be funded under Centre’s clean air programme; 28 cities to get Rs 10 crore each

The central government will fund 102 cities under the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP), with 28 cities receiving Rs 10 crore each, as per a report in The Economic Times.

The 28 cities, with population over a million and receiving the Rs 10 crore assistance include Delhi, Mumbai, Kanpur, Lucknow, Chandigarh, Varanasi, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Patna, Raipur, Vijayawada, Surat, Bhopal, Gwalior, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Kota, Bhubaneswar, Agra, Allahabad, Nagpur and Pune among others.

The higher fund allocation is because these were identified as cities which reported pollution levels above 90 micrograms per cubic metre (mg/m3) of particulate matter (PM10), the paper noted.

From the remaining 74 cities, those with a population between five to ten lakh will receive Rs 20 lakh each, while those with a population below five lakh will receive Rs 10 lakh each, as the initial amount, it stated.

The report added that cost to counter air pollution in the designated cities would exceed financial support from the fund and measures ‘worth thousands of crores of rupees’ undertaken in sectors such as transport, renewables and forests would contribute towards carbon reduction.

As per Union Minister of Environment Prakash Javadekar, “80 of the 102 cities have already prepared their action plans and the Centre will support their pollution abatement measures.”