new delhi delhi may have cleaned up its act by banning coal but it is allowed in the rest of national capital region ncr coalbased industries are still considered a major source of pollution in the region highlights state of indias environment 2021 a report released by centre for science and environment cse on thursday the report states the share of industries using coal especially in ghaziabad and panipat was found to be 86 and 562 respectively which could be a lead factor behind the high pm25 and pm10 levels in the regionthe assessment carried out in the seven major industrial centres in ncr ghaziabad panipat sonipat faridabad gurgaon alwar and bhiwadi was carried out in 2020 to identify industrial pollution hotspots and the major air polluting industrial sectors the study found that coal was the most consumed fuel in all seven districts with around 14 million tonnes of coal being used annually in the industries the second most consumed fuel was agrowastewe are still way behind in bringing in fuel switch in the whole of delhincr and coal is still the king of fuels for industries the report states it also calculated the chimneybased industrial pollution load of different districts to find the industrial hotspots and their share in industrial air pollution in a districtthe findings clearly highlight the industrial areas and sectors that the authorities need to focus on to bring down pollution levels in these major industrial districts it saysa 2018 source apportionment study conducted by automotive research association of india a research and development organisation set up by the automotive industry with the central government and teri a delhibased nonprofit organisation had shown that the share of industrial pollution in ncr was much higher compared to delhi the share of industrial sector in terms of pm10 was 2 in delhi while it was 28 in the rest of the ncr the pm25 count for the same category was 3 and 24 respectively citing cpcb data the current report states that out of 88 major industrial clusters in the country 35 showed an overall environmental degradation 33 worsening air quality 45 an increase in water pollution and at 17 land pollution has become worsebetter usage of continuous emission monitoring system data for deterrence engagement of concessionaires for the management of industrial waste identification of illegal industries introducing concept of common boilers wherever possible and developing strategy to curb fugitive emissions from industries are some of the steps that the government can take it points out but the gamechanging move would be bringing in fuel change in all air polluting industries in delhincr