Chennai — CPCB Monitoring Stations
Every CPCB monitoring station in Chennai, ranked by long-run AQI. Based on CPCB station data, 2016–present.
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How much does neighbourhood matter in Chennai?
The spread between Chennai's cleanest (AQI 63) and dirtiest (AQI 90) CPCB station is about half a NAQI category. In practice, your AQI experience in Chennai can differ meaningfully depending on which neighbourhood you live or work in — a city-wide headline number averages these stations out.
Every station on one number line
Each dot is one CPCB station, placed at its long-run average AQI (1–500). Colour follows the NAQI category. Closer clusters mean more uniform air; spread-out dots mean more disparity.
CPCB stations that map to neighbourhoods
1 of Chennai's 9 CPCB stations match a neighbourhood with a live-AQI page on AQI Today. Click to see current conditions near that station.
Chennai — all 9 CPCB stations
- 1Manali (CPCB)901991d
- 2Alandur Bus Depot (CPCB)821586d
- 3Gandhi Nagar Ennore (TNPCB)81141d
- 4Manali Village (TNPCB)781040d
- 5Royapuram (TNPCB)671042d
- 6Kodungaiyur (TNPCB)661017d
- 7Perungudi (TNPCB)661004d
- 8Velachery Res Area (CPCB)652071d
- 9Arumbakkam (TNPCB)63978d
City-wide category distribution
- Good:2.3%
- Satisfactory:55.2%
- Moderate:35.6%
- Poor:6.1%
- Very Poor:0.8%
- Severe:0%
Based on 2,281 daily max AQI readings.
Disparity summary
- Cleanest station avg
- AQI 63
- Median station avg
- AQI 67
- Dirtiest station avg
- AQI 90
- Gap
- 27 pts
- City-wide avg
- AQI 74
What the numbers say
Overview
Chennai is monitored by 9 CPCB stations, and they do not agree with each other. The cleanest station averages AQI 63, the median station averages 67, and the most polluted averages 90. That is a 27-point gap between neighbourhoods of the same city.
The data story
Across the long-run record, the worst-performing station in Chennai has been around the Manali Chennai CPCB area, averaging AQI 90 with peaks hitting 377. This is typical of industrial corridors, traffic junctions near fossil-fuel heating zones, or areas at the end of the prevailing wind that accumulate the city's emissions.
Why this pattern
Intra-city AQI disparities are normal in dense Indian cities because emission sources — factories, highways, brick kilns, waste-burning dumps — are concentrated in specific neighbourhoods rather than evenly spread. Monitoring stations are placed to capture this variation: a leafy residential pocket can post AQI 120 on the same afternoon that an industrial-boundary station reads 260. Any single "city AQI" number is an average that hides the real range of exposures experienced by residents.
What to do with this
If you live in Chennai, use this leaderboard to find the nearest station to your home or workplace and treat that reading as more relevant than the city average. Parents choosing schools, employers planning outdoor work and runners picking routes should all factor in station-level data. If your neighbourhood station is in the top-three worst, treat indoor air quality, mask use on bad days, and window timing as priority interventions.