<p>The rapid population growth in the last few decades has resulted in urbanisation at a very fast pace. The world is facing various environmental problems and health issues that are impacted by urbanisation. It multiplies due to the increase in land surface temperature and aerosol loadings in urban areas which forms Surface Urban Heat Islands (SUHI) and Urban Pollution Islands (UPI). Of late it is noticed that the elevated aerosol loadings from the agricultural/crop residue burning or stubble burning (CRB/ARB/SB) is causing further degradation to the urban atmospheric environment in some parts of the country. However, the middle Gangetic plain (MGP) or the present study area is yet to be evaluated specifically in the context of SUHI and Urban AOD variation in ARB season. The cities of the Middle Gangetic Plain (Varanasi, Patna, and Gaya, ) have been focused in the present study, during the post-monsoon season of India, which corresponds with the harvesting period of rice crop. The present study is carried out to measure variations in SUHI intensity (SUHII) and Urban aerosol loading, with special reference to the ARB at the same time. This study involves the use of MODIS data products viz. MOD11A1 and MCD19A2 along with several other datasets from GWIS and other sources for estimating the variations in LST, variation in the aerosol loadings and land cover-based fire and emission data in the past two decades. It has been found that SUHII, urban AOD, regional particulate matter load and burned area are increasing, indicating noticeable deterioration of the atmospheric environment. The Sen’s slope estimator indicated an increase of ~ 0.01℃ to 0.03℃ per year in monthly average SUHII across all the studied cities. Whereas AOD is found to be increased by 0.008–0.02 per year. Except for SUHII over Patna in October all cities register a positive increasing trend in MK test for urban AOD and SUHII. In the light of this increasing trend future mitigation policies are strongly needed.</p>