Srinagar’s air quality needs reset

Srinagar’s sharp decline in the Centre’s 2026 Swachh Vayu Sarvekshan ranking should serve as a warning to policymakers. The city has slipped to 26th position among cities with populations above 10 lakh, from 21st in 2025 and an impressive fourth position in 2023. More concerning is the fall in its score, from 184.6 in 2023 to 162.6 this year. The ranking is not merely a matter of statistics. It reflects the effectiveness of measures being taken to control the sources of pollution that directly affect public health and urban liveability. Road dust, vehicular emissions, construction activity, waste management and biomass burning all contribute to Srinagar’s air-quality challenge. The decline is particularly difficult to reconcile with the substantial investment made in the city under the Smart City Mission, where projects worth around Rs 3,530 crore have been approved across sanitation, mobility, environment and energy sectors. Plantation drives, electric buses, e-rickshaws, mechanical road sprinkling and concrete roads are useful interventions, but their impact must be measurable and sustained. Srinagar’s waste-management gaps deserve immediate attention. Solid waste processing and construction and demolition waste cannot remain weak links in an otherwise ambitious urban-development programme. Rapid construction and increasing traffic also demand stronger enforcement rather than occasional drives. Jammu’s improvement offers a useful contrast. Its score rose to 176.5 from 168.2 last year, demonstrating that sustained interventions can produce measurable gains. Srinagar now needs a coordinated, data-driven clean-air strategy. Authorities must identify pollution hotspots, strengthen waste processing, regulate construction dust, improve public transport and enforce emission norms consistently. A clean-air programme cannot be judged by the number of projects announced or roads renovated. Its success should be visible in cleaner air. Srinagar’s declining ranking provides precisely that reminder.