Rohtak, July 29 -- Haryana's fight against air pollution remains an uphill task, with cities in the National Capital Region (NCR) and industrial towns witnessing the highest number of unhealthy air days over the past three years despite efforts under the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP). The Air Quality Index (AQI) data tabled by the Union ministry of environment, forest and climate change in the Lok Sabha revealed that one of the state's most populous cities, Gurugram, emerged as the state's most polluted city from 2023 to 2025, recording 458 "bad air days"-when air quality remained in the poor, very poor, or severe categories. According to the data, city of Faridabad ranked second with 335 bad air days, though the city witnessed considerable fall in number of bad days declining from 129 in 2023 and 140 in 2024 to 66 in 2025, suggesting some improvement while still remaining among the state's worst-affected cities. Charkhi Dadri recorded 278 bad air days during the period, narrowly ahead of industrial city of Ballabhgarh (277), while Dharuhera (270) and Bahadurgarh (269) also reported persistently high pollution levels. Rohtak recorded 230 bad air days over the three years, while Sonepat recorded 213, indicating that unhealthy air remains a recurring challenge beyond Haryana's immediate NCR districts. The ministry classifies AQI into good (0-50), satisfactory (51-100), moderate (101-200), poor (201-300), very poor (301-400) and severe (above 400) categories. "Bad air days" represent the combined total of days falling in the poor, very poor and severe categories....