Korba, the power capital of Chhattisgarh, is among the 102 non-attainment cities. The city has around 8 large coal-fired thermal power plants producing over 6600 MW of electricity that cumulatively emit 36 tonnes of pollution per day01. It also holds Gevra, one of the world’s largest open cast coal mines and other major open cast coal mines such as Kusmunda mines and Dipka mines. Korba was ranked fifth among the 88 ‘critically polluted area’ industrial clusters as per the Comprehensive Environmental Pollution Index (CEPI) ranking released by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) in 2009. In a subsequent study by Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur in 2014, the city was found to have improved to a CEPI score of 74.5.

The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has identified a list of polluted cities, which refers to cities which violate standards prescribed by the National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS, 2009). The identification is based on the ambient air quality data obtained under the National Air Quality Monitoring Programme (NAMP) during the period of 2011-2015. In 2018, a total of 102 cities were identified as “non-attainment cities” in India based on the non-compliance to the NAAQS 2009 . Data was also based on the top 10 cities from the list of polluted cities from the World Health Organisation (WHO), released in April 2018.