Srinagar’s fall from fourth place to 26th in India’s Clean Air Survey should alarm the government.
A city that was counted among the country’s better performers in 2023 has slipped sharply within three years.
The latest ranking raises a basic question: what went wrong?
The 2026 Swachh Vayu Survekshan, conducted under the Union government’s National Clean Air Programme, placed Srinagar 26th among 39 cities with populations above one million.
Srinagar scored 162.6 points. Delhi, long associated with severe winter pollution, ranked 21st with 172 points. Lucknow topped the list, followed by Indore, Jabalpur and Bhopal.
The ranking itself needs careful reading. It is not a direct measure of pollution concentration alone. The survey also considers the measures taken by cities to improve air quality.
Still, Srinagar’s steep fall needs serious scrutiny, particularly when pollution sources are visible throughout the city.
J&K Climate Action Group has asked legislators to raise the issue during the coming Assembly session. Its chairman, Raja Muzaffar Bhat, has called for an inquiry into the decline and pointed to several possible contributors, including open burning of municipal waste, road dust, construction debris, vehicle emissions, stone crushers and illegal cement plants.
The warning comes ahead of the season when Srinagar’s air can deteriorate sharply.
Last year, the city’s Air Quality Index approached 300 at its worst, a level associated with serious health risks. Cold weather can trap pollutants close to the ground, while increased use of heating fuels adds another source of smoke.
The government therefore has a narrow window to act before another winter exposes the weakness of the existing system.
Waste burning calls for strict enforcement, construction sites need effective dust-control measures, construction and demolition waste requires proper collection and disposal, vehicle emissions call for meaningful checks, while industrial units and stone crushers need regular inspections backed by penalties for violations.
The decline also points to a larger problem in J&K.
Air pollution is being treated as an environmental issue when it is also a public health and urban governance issue.
Srinagar’s expanding roads, buildings, traffic and waste volumes have created pressures that demand coordinated action.
The Assembly can turn the latest ranking into a useful political test. Legislators can ask which agencies were responsible for the deterioration, what targets were set after 2023 and what was actually achieved.
A clean-air ranking should never become a certificate framed on an office wall. Srinagar’s fall should instead become evidence for action.
The city has already shown that better performance is possible. The government now needs to explain why that progress was lost and what it plans to do before another polluted winter arrives.
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