Pune: Pune ranked 10th under Swachh Vayu Survekshan 2025 that evaluated the city’s performance in tackling air pollution, handling solid and waste management, road dust, controlling vehicular and industrial emissions, and creating public awareness. This is a remarkable improvement from last year’s survey when it was placed at 23th position.The ministry of environment, forest and climate change conducted the study across 130 cities, including 16 from Maharashtra, under the National Clean Air Programme. The awards were distributed on Tuesday.Pune, a participant in category 1 (population above 10 lakh), received 185 points out of 200 and shared the 10th rank with Nagpur and Ahmedabad. The top slot in the country was secured by Indore with 200 points. It was closely followed by Jabalpur with 199 points while the third position was jointly shared by Agra and Surat with 196 points. Santosh Varule, environment officer of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), said the civic body had taken several measures throughout the year to reduce air pollution.“CNG-run garbage trucks, buses, as well as electric PMPML buses have been rolled out to bring down pollution caused by vehicles. Gas and electric crematoriums have been introduced. An air pollution control system has been installed in wood-burning crematoriums. Besides, awareness is being created among people on improving air quality,” Varule said. Sunil Dahiya, founder and lead analyst, Envirocatalysts, said the improvement in city rankings is a positive step, but it risks creating a false sense of accomplishment. “These rankings are based on self-reporting of actions taken, not on the actual reduction in harmful emissions. The air in our cities is still not safe to breathe by international and national standards. To make genuine progress, we need to overhaul the system with a composite matrix that directly measures and incentivises the reduction in emission loads across all contributing sectors,” he said.PMC officials, however, said the ranking assessed the efforts of the local self-governing body and not the exact factors such as PM levels. They said cities were awarded for implementing best practices such as end-to-end paving on roads, mechanical sweeping, legacy waste bioremediation, intelligent traffic management, greenbelt development, Miyawaki afforestation, and clean fuel transition in industries.Sumita Kale, a resident and member of the Deccan Gymkhana Parisar Samiti, said a higher rank does not necessarily mean the air is clean — everyone else could simply be doing worse. “On the ground, we have not experienced any visible or noticeable improvement. With the hyper-intensive construction activity in the city, if anything, pollution feels worse,” she said.Kale further said that between Feb and April this year, Pune’s air quality was poor on 57 out of 89 days, as reported by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA). “The analysis, based on Central Pollution Control Board data, showed that the city’s average PM10 levels were 127 µg/m³ in Feb and 112 µg/m³ in March —both higher than the National Ambient Air Quality Standards, which set the daily safe limit at 100 µg/m³,” she said.The civic administration, in a press release on Tuesday, stated that until July 2025, there were 41,16,310 registered vehicles in the city. “The number of electric vehicles has increased from 33,000 to 95,000. Around 70% of roads are in the green belt category while the disposal of solid waste is being done properly,” the release said.
