Context: India has set a target to reduce PM 2.5 levels by 2026 to 40% of the levels in 2017. While ambitious, the target risks falling short, if it is not mindful of on-ground realities.
Relevance of the Topic: Mains: Limitations of current policies, and the need for a more structured and data-driven approach to combating air pollution.
India’s Air Pollution Crisis
- India’s Air Pollution crisis is a persistent, silent pandemic that chokes our lungs every winter and quietly lingers throughout the year.
- While initiatives like the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP), Bharat VI emission norms, Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY), and targeted efforts to phase out coal-burning industries (particularly in the National Capital Region) mark important progress, the national response remains fragmented and slow-moving.
Key Challenges:
- Structural and Behavioural Issues: Air Pollution is a complex structural issue shaped by:
- Lack of coordinated execution.
- Demographic pressure due to rapid urbanisation.
- Socio-economic disparity: inequality in access to cleaner alternatives.
- Entrenched economic systems: heavy dependence on coal and outdated industrial practices.
- Behavioral norms: reluctance to shift away from polluting fuels.
- Lack of Capacity: Air quality is often treated as a secondary concern rather than a core municipal function. Municipal officers, planners, engineers, and community leaders operate within tight budgets, outdated infrastructure, and competing local demands.
- India’s NCAP budget is just 1% of what China spent on air pollution reduction.
- Between 2019-2023, only 60% of NCAP funds were utilised, highlighting administrative inefficiencies.
- Local governments lack access to high-resolution, open-source data on emissions-generating activities. Without such data, air pollution remains an abstract issue, disconnected from daily governance.
Way Forward: Strategy Needed
- India needs a phased, data-driven approach.
- Phase I: Build local emissions profiles to identify the biggest pollution sources.
- Phase II: Link funding directly to targeted actions based on that data.
- Phase III : Track reductions in emissions, not just pollution concentrations, to measure real progress.
- Activity-based tracking (E.g., monitoring the number of old diesel vehicles; LPG stoves adopted) is needed for more accurate measurement.
- Effective utilisation of allocated funds. Better coordination between all levels of government.
- Learning from global examples: India must do the same — innovate programmes tailored to its regional requirements.
- China closed coal plants
- Brazil used community-led waste systems
- California reinvested pollution revenue in poor communities
- London banned coal-use before launching sensors.
India’s clean air future will be shaped by people, partnerships, and purpose. Clean air must be a right for all, not a privilege for a few. Securing that right will take coordination, courage, and a commitment to act.