Surat has dropped to fifth place among India’s million-plus cities in the Swachh Vayu Sarvekshan 2026, the clean air survey the Central Pollution Control Board runs under the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP). The city scored 191 out of 200. It was first in 2024 with 194 and joint third in 2025 with 196, according to Connect Gujarat and DeshGujarat. Lucknow topped the category with 198, followed by Indore (197), Jabalpur (195), and Bhopal and Agra (192 each).
Two other Gujarat cities finished close behind. Rajkot scored 187, level with Thane and Chandigarh, and Ahmedabad scored 186. Some national lists, including DNA‘s, number tied cities one after another, which is why Surat shows up as sixth and Rajkot as tenth in some reports. The scores themselves match across outlets.
Where Surat lost its marks
DeshGujarat’s breakdown of the scorecard shows Surat took full marks in most sections: 40 of 40 for road dust, 40 for vehicle emissions, 40 for organic waste, 10 for construction dust, 20 for other sources and 5 for public awareness. The city lost marks in two places. It scored 36 of 40 on industrial emissions, down four from last year, because industries have not moved to cleaner fuels. And it scored zero of 5 for improvement in measured PM10 levels.
That second number deserves attention. In this scorecard, measured PM10 counts for 5 marks out of 200. The other 195 marks reward what a civic body does: sweeping machines, dust control at building sites, waste handling, awareness drives. A city can score in the 190s while the dust level its residents breathe fails to improve, and that is what Surat’s 2026 result shows. The survey tells you how hard a municipal corporation is working on the problem. For the air itself, you need the pollution board’s monitoring data.
DeshGujarat attributes the lack of PM10 progress to dust from road and drainage digging, construction, vehicles and industrial units. Connect Gujarat lists much the same causes. Residents living beside a road dug up for drainage lines will recognise the first item.
What it means for Surat, Rajkot and Ahmedabad
For Surat residents, the result points to the city’s industrial estates more than its streets. The Surat Municipal Corporation has already maxed out the civic sections, so it cannot gain much more there. The four lost marks on industrial emissions depend on factories switching away from dirtier fuels, a change that rests with industry and the state’s pollution regulator more than with the civic body.
Rajkot’s 187 and Ahmedabad’s 186 put both cities within five marks of Surat. The reports we reviewed did not include their section-wise scores, so it is not yet clear whether they also scored zero on measured PM10 improvement. That detail matters more to people in those cities than the rank.
What to watch
NCAP, launched in 2019, set cities a goal of cutting PM10 by up to 40% from 2017-18 levels, or meeting national air quality standards, by 2025-26. That deadline has now passed. The next useful number for Gujarat’s cities is the one this survey barely weighs: the year-on-year change in measured PM10 from monitoring stations. If Surat, Rajkot and Ahmedabad want to hold their places, they will need to show gains there as well as on the civic checklist.
Sources: Connect Gujarat, DeshGujarat, DNA, Trade Brains, Vajiram & Ravi
This report was written with AI assistance from the publicly reported sources linked here; each fact was cross-checked against at least two of them.