Lucknow is known for traffic and dust. How did it top India’s clean-air ranking?

Mayor Sushma Kharakwal said around 90 per cent of the city’s door-to-door garbage collection vehicles are now electric, with the remaining vehicles expected to be replaced over the next six months.

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From garbage collection to electric mobility

One of the most visible changes has been the increasing use of electric vehicles. Around 1,100 such vehicles are being used for door-to-door waste collection, ensuring regular lifting of garbage while reducing emissions from the municipal fleet, officials said.

The city has also expanded its electric public transport fleet, with 140 electric buses currently operating.

To support the transition, 12 charging stations with 916 charging points have been established across Lucknow, officials said.

A direct fight against road dust

The Municipal Corporation has deployed 97 electric mechanised sweeping machines for road cleaning.

At the same time, about 559.85 km of roads have been paved end-to-end, reducing exposed surfaces and helping prevent dust from being thrown into the air by passing traffic.

Officials said the combination of paving and regular mechanised sweeping has been important in controlling re-suspended road dust.

Stopping garbage from becoming smoke

The administration has also sought to address pollution generated by the burning of municipal waste.

Lucknow now has arrangements for 100% scientific processing of municipal waste, with a capacity of 2,550 tonnes per day, officials said.

Preventing open waste burning was also an important component of the effort, with the Municipal Corporation seeking to ensure that garbage collected from homes does not end up being burnt in open plots or by the roadside, releasing smoke and fine particles into the air.

Expanding green cover in a growing city

As Lucknow grows, creating new green spaces within a densely built urban environment is becoming increasingly difficult.

The city’s clean-air strategy has therefore included Miyawaki plantations and vertical gardens, adding greenery in spaces where conventional large-scale plantations may not always be possible.

Officials maintain that the idea was not only to improve the appearance of the city but also to expand its green cover.

The clean-air battle reaches the mohalla

Perhaps one of the more significant aspects of Lucknow’s performance is that the effort has moved beyond city-level plans to the ward level. Lucknow’s Ward-70 in Zone-4 was ranked No. 1 nationally among urban wards with a population of more than 30,000.

At this level, seemingly small interventions mattered — preventing garbage burning, keeping roads and local stretches free of dust, and ensuring that waste does not pile up.

The challenge now is to sustain these measures and translate the No. 1 ranking into a long-term reduction in particulate pollution even as the city expands.

The city is also yet to achieve the PM 10 annual ambient air quality standard of 60 ug/m3 (micrograms/cubic metre), prescribed under the national standards, as per the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) portal. However, since the programme was initiated in 2019, its annual PM 10 concentrations have declined from 250 ug/m3 in 2017-18 to 137 ug/m3, a 45.2% reduction.