Gurgaon topped India’s pollution chart in March 2026, Haryana held four of top 10 polluted cities: CREA

Key facts

• Gurgaon recorded the highest monthly average PM2.5 level of 116 μg/m³ in March 2026, making it India’s most polluted city that month.
• Haryana contributed four cities—Gurgaon, Bahadurgarh, Faridabad and Manesar—to the national top 10 most polluted list for March.
• The other top 10 polluted cities in March were Singrauli, Mandideep, Ghaziabad, Bhiwadi, Noida and Nandesari.
• Across the full financial year 2025-26, Ghaziabad emerged as India’s most polluted city.
• Haryana had nine out of 24 monitored cities exceeding the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for PM2.5, the highest among states.
• Uttar Pradesh followed with eight out of 21 cities breaching the NAAQS.
• Under the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP), nine Uttar Pradesh cities cut PM10 by over 40 % versus the 2017-18 baseline.
• Maharashtra posted three, West Bengal, Uttarakhand and Punjab two each, and Tamil Nadu, Jharkhand, Nagaland, Jammu & Kashmir, Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Assam one city each with similar >40 % PM10 reductions.
• Odisha led with five cities registering an increase in PM10, while Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh each had two cities showing higher concentrations relative to the baseline.
• Dehradun (Uttarakhand) achieved the steepest PM10 reduction of 75 % compared to 2017-18.
• Visakhapatnam (Andhra Pradesh) recorded the highest PM10 increase at 73 % over the same period.
• Delhi reported a 17 % reduction in PM10 levels since 2017-18.