Northern India has been engulfed by hazardous air. A health emergency has peaked with the Air Quality Index (AQI) crossing the 900s in many parts of the national capital. While much noise is correctly made at this time of the year, the problem persists for most of the year. What must we do to create institutions that effectively address this killer of about 1.2 million Indians annually?
Air pollution is not a Delhi problem alone. The Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP) is often singled out as the most polluted region in the world. It cradles 17 of the world’s 20 most polluted cities, according to the IQ Air World Air Quality Report of 2023. The air quality crisis extends well beyond the IGP, affecting many other parts of India. Appreciating the urgency of the need to curb air pollution, in 2019, the ministry of environment, forests and climate change launched the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) with the bold target of reducing particulate matter (PM) of size less than 10 micron and 2.5 micron (PM10 and PM2.5, respectively) by 20-30% by 2026, using the 2017 levels as the baseline. To achieve this, the NCAP identified 131 non-attainment cities for focused interventions. Additionally, the Commission for Air Quality Monitoring (CAQM) in the National Capital Region and Adjoining Areas was established to oversee air quality management.
Five years later, air pollution — considered a health hazard since the 1980s — has entered the national conversation. Policymakers are embracing new ideas, and air quality found, for the first time, a place in political manifestos ahead of the 2024 general elections. Several innovative solutions have emerged, and there is cautious optimism despite the everyday miseries of breathing bad air.
However, the road ahead is still long.
Many of the non-attainment cities have crafted Clean Air Action Plans and received funding from the NCAP and the 15th Finance Commission (FC), which allocated ₹8,951 crore for these efforts. A 2023 report by the Centre for Science and Environment revealed that while 67% of FC funds had been spent, much of it was used on easier sources like reducing road dust, rather than tackling more complex sources such as industrial pollution. This cannot be done without capacity-building of the institutions to address more complex solutions. We don’t know for sure the impact of the funds used. Government-appointed agencies should evaluate this, fill in the blind spots, and draw lessons from innovative city-level efforts as well as help overcome challenges.
The CAQM, established with fanfare, has given us little, as the current crisis demonstrates. We see the same ideas repeated every year, mostly during peak pollution. There is no new thinking, even as old ideas demonstrate limited impact. The body lacks both authority and energy. It should be replaced by a national agency, mandated to act across India, in any part. It must be informed by a range of scientists, public interest groups and doctors, and be led either by a serving, empowered, knowledgeable civil servant with no other distractions or by a scientifically informed politician with proven influence. The body should focus both on the NCAP goals and super pollutants like ozone that we are now learning more about. Most important, it should report directly to one of the highest national authorities, being able to assert itself across state political alignments.
Learning from newer science, air quality management should no longer be framed purely as a city responsibility but in terms of larger “airsheds”, or regions where pollution circulates in identifiable patterns. India has identified 15 airsheds, up from the initial three. The NCAP should cluster non-attainment cities, enable other actors to join, and enable ecosystems of solutions instead of one city struggling by itself to reduce pollution with no control on external factors. When multiple states become a part of this, the opportunity to improve both the capacity and the staffing of the state pollution control boards also presents itself.
Public participation is important to move the needle. A 2024 survey by Chintan, a Delhi-based non-profit, found that only 30% of middle-income respondents in areas like Noida, Ghaziabad, and Faridabad understood common air-pollution terms such as Air Quality Index (AQI). Awareness among the urban poor — the most affected by air pollution — was about 10%. This gap presents an opportunity to educate citizens, especially through schools, about air pollution and AQI. This could empower them to take action and participate in solutions. On the other hand, public engagement should shift with the times. The Graded Rapid Action Plan (GRAP), a key tool in controlling rising AQI levels in its jurisdiction in Delhi, relies heavily on restrictive public instructions: banning, refusing, restraining. While this is necessary, GRAP is likely to gain more traction with positive messaging that empowers the public to be a part of the solution, rather than be policed. “Can do” is more attractive than “cannot do”. Nuancing the solutions from “cannot do” to “must do” can encourage broader participation and behaviour changes.
As India marks five years of the bold idea of the NCAP, it should take stock of what needs to be done in the next phase. Though air pollution remains a colossal challenge for a large, geographically diverse, and vulnerable country, there is reason for optimism. However, meeting future goals will require realigning sites of actions from cities alone to airsheds, empowering newer agencies while upgrading older ones, deploying funds more effectively across airsheds and monitoring their impact, and enhancing public capacity to act.
While strides have been made, the path to clean air now needs the next generation of systemic change.
CK Mishra is former secretary, ministry of health and family welfare, and ministry of environment, forest and the climate crisis. Bharati Chaturvedi is an environmentalist and writer. She is the founder and director of Chintan Environmental Research and Action Group. The views expressed are personal
