Multiple agencies, fragmented accountability: The stumbling blocks in ensuring clean air

Multiple agencies, lack of cross departmental co-ordination and fragmented accountability may be stumbling blocks in ensuring clean, unpolluted air for citizens.

Mumbai’s clean air plan lists 58 measures across 16 different agencies. However, an independent analysis by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) and Urban Emissions has revealed how around 60% of these remedial actions come under the ambit of multiple agencies, which could fragment the accountability.

Launched in January 2019 by the Union Ministry of Environment Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC), the National Clean Air Program (NCAP) directed 102 cities, including 17 in Maharashtra, to create city-specific clean air plans.

This is a primary mitigation measure to reduce particulate matter (PM) concentration by 20%-30% till 2024, with 2017 as the base year. In August 2019, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) added another 20 cities to this list.

Mitigation measures include plying electric vehicles for public transport, establishment of charging stations, use of bio-ethanol, road widening, monitoring industrial emissions, stopping open burning of waste, establishment of compost pits, control measures for fugitive emissions at construction sites, maintaining 33% forest cover and doorstep collection of segregated waste.

Kurinji Selvaraj, research analyst, CEEW, said that Mumbai’s action plan was among the few plans which contained information on sources and listed financial requirements for implementation. But though independent estimates suggest that around a third of Mumbai’s air pollution originates outside city limits, the plan fails to highlight any measures to ensure regional coordination.