31 cities lag behind in curbing air pollution

Centre wants cities to reduce air pollution by 35% in three years, but only 71 have chalked out an action plan

MUMBAI: Three months after the Centre asked India’s most polluted cities to come up with a plan to reduce air pollution, almost a third of them do not have an action plan.

As part of the Centre’s National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) that identified 100 mostpolluted cities across the country in March, the figure was later updated to 102 cities.

Seventy-one cities have chalked out an air pollution action plan, said officials from the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), the country’s apex pollution regulator.

Thirty-one are expected to submit their drafts by June 30, they said.

For a long-term solution against air pollution, the Union environment ministry wants a 35% reduction of air pollution in the next three years and 50% reduction in five years for the polluted cities. The reduction is in suspended particulate matter (PM) which is a mix of organic and chemicals, including dust, pollen and soot.

“A standard framework has been provided to all states, which needs to be approved by the state government. Since there are a lot of issues related to financial closure for sectorwise source abatement, the involvement of the state governments is important,” said A Sudhakar, member secretary, CPCB.

CPCB shared with HT a list of the cities that have not submitted pollution mitigation strategies so far. Maharashtra has the most number of such cities (10), followed by Rajasthan, Uttar Pra- desh and Karnataka.

“Major metropolitan cities such as Mumbai, New Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Gurugram and major cities in east and northeast India have developed their plans. Eight northern and central Indian states are yet to finalise their plans. These are dynamic plans and are subject to change in the coming years as air quality improves,” said Sudhakar.

He added that the basic framework for the action plan includes improving air quality monitoring network for both manual and continuous air quality stations, disseminating data to maximum stakeholders, developing source apportionment across each polluting sector with targets and emission inventory proposals for those sectors, and consulting the public to understand best implementation strategies.

“We had first asked major cities to submit an action plan in January. We pushed the deadline to March but by then we received only 51 action plans. However, some states are first approaching their respective state bodies and then coming to CPCB with their final drafts. The fact that states are pushing for clean air is a welcome sign,” said Sudhakar. In May, the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) report said 14 most-polluted cities in the world were from India — New Delhi topped the list and Mumbai ranked fourth.