Clean air needs targets, timelines, accountability

Why in the News

Lucknow topped the Union government’s latest Swachh Vayu Sarvekshan (clean air survey) ranking of million-plus cities in September. Yet its PM10 level, the coarse dust particles people inhale, is still more than double the national safety standard of 60 micrograms per cubic metre. The ranking rewards administrative activity rather than cleaner air.

What does the Swachh Vayu Sarvekshan measure, and what does it miss?

1. What it is: The survey scores cities on administrative activity: sweeping roads, managing waste, paving sidewalks and preparing action plans. It is like grading a hospital on paperwork, not recoveries.
2. Air quality weight: Actual reductions in particulate matter count for just 2.5% of a city’s total score.
3. Lucknow’s progress: Lucknow deserves credit for sharply cutting its annual average PM10 level.
4. Delhi’s stalled winters: The Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) finds no appreciable improvement in Delhi’s winter air in four years, even with emergency curbs under the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP).
5. The takeaway: A city can follow every procedure, win national accolades and still have dangerously polluted air.

What does delay in delivering clean air cost?

1. Missing cost of delay: The National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) has improved how India plans, funds and tracks city action. It ignores the economic cost of delay, the benefits lost while action waits.
2. Hidden Assets: This United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and Climate and Clean Air Coalition assessment finds South Asia bears the world’s heaviest air pollution burden, costing about 10% of regional gross domestic product (GDP) a year.
3. Returns on clean air: Clean-air spending pays back many times over through lower hospital bills, fewer missed workdays, higher productivity and lives saved.
4. Delay in Delhi: Meeting standards on time would cut the National Capital Region (NCR)‘s total PM2.5 (fine particle) exposure by a fifth by 2040. An eight-year delay, the study’s global average, would halve that gain.
5. Delay destroys benefits: Late action does not postpone benefits; it erases them. Eg. A filter installed in 2034 cannot clean the air a child breathed in 2026.

What should NCAP 2.0 fix?

1. Fragmented responsibility: The Hidden Assets study names institutional fragmentation, many agencies sharing a problem with none owning it, as a major obstacle across developing nations.
2. Many sources, many agencies: Air pollution comes from transport, electricity generation, industry, waste management, agriculture and household cooking, each under a different ministry, department or urban agency.
3. Proven delivery: India manages complex transitions when responsibilities are clear. Eg. Rural liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) connections under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana, and the growth of solar power.
4. New measure of success: Under NCAP 2.0, spending should be judged by how much exposure it cuts, how fast relief arrives and which agency answers for missed deadlines.
5. Speed over new measures: Air pollution’s costs and many solutions are already known, so India needs binding deadlines, not another list of measures.

Challenges

1. Seasonal attention: Toxic air draws attention each winter, then is forgotten until the cycle returns.
2. Diffused accountability: When clean air is left to environment departments alone, coordination suffers, deadlines slip and accountability diffuses.
3. Emergency-led response: Policy still leans on emergency measures and disconnected schemes rather than sustained cuts in exposure.

Way Forward

1. Money for results: Tie central grants and Finance Commission transfers to sustained reductions in pollution exposure.
2. Outcome-weighted ranking: Give measured particulate reduction far more weight in the survey’s score.
3. Single accountable owner: Make one authority per airshed, the area sharing the same air, answerable for its deadlines.

Conclusion

India’s clean-air effort has learned to plan and spend, but it still rewards activity over cleaner air and treats time as free. Whether NCAP 2.0 ties money and accountability to how fast exposure falls is the test to watch.

Key numbers

1. Lucknow PM10: 253 micrograms per cubic metre (2017-18) to about 135 today.
2. Hidden Assets returns: about Rs 21 per rupee invested in 25 climate and clean-air measures; Rs 4 globally excluding non-market benefits.
3. Delhi-NCR scenario start: national standards met on schedule from 2026.

Government Initiatives to Control Air Pollution

1. Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) Act, 2021: Created a statutory body coordinating airshed-level action across Delhi-NCR and adjoining States.
2. Transport reforms: Bharat Stage VI (Phase 2) emission norms and the vehicle scrappage policy target vehicular emissions.
3. Nagar Van Yojana: 620 urban forest projects sanctioned with a ₹654 crore outlay to expand green cover.
4. Finance Commission air-quality grants: The Fifteenth Finance Commission gave ₹2,194.25 crore to 48 million-plus cities.

Matching Previous Year Question

“[2021, GS3, 10 marks] Describe the key points of the revised Global Air Quality Guidelines (AQGs) recently released by the World Health Organisation (WHO). How are these different from its last update in 2005? What changes in India’s National Clean Air Programme are required to achieve these revised standards?”