Introduction
India is embroiled in a profound air pollution crisis, particularly in its densely populated urban centers. According to Swiss IQ Air's recent findings, cities like Delhi, Varanasi, and Kanpur to tier-2 cities like Guwahati, and non-city places like Begusarai were some of the most polluted cities globally. Remaining an invisible threat, air pollution is detrimental to environmental health and its intrinsic connection to public health and diminished economic productivity. While India has enacted various policies aimed at addressing air quality such as the National Clean Air Programme (hereafter NCAP), the effectiveness of these measures remains conflated at best. This commentary offers a critical evaluation of India’s air pollution policies through socio-economic and political lenses, while also grounding the discussions in public policy theories.
Breathing the Unknown
India’s urban sprawls, particularly in the Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP), exhibit alarming levels of air pollution. Notably, Delhi has consistently topped the charts for PM2.5 concentrations, as verified by the Swiss AQI. A study by the Health Effects Institute (HEI) attests to the dire situation, attributing over 1.67 million premature deaths annually in India to air pollution, positioning it as a major public health crisis, according to The Lancet Planetary Health study. Major contributors to the problem include industrial emissions, vehicular exhaust, agricultural practices like crop stubble burning, and the prevalent use of solid fuels for domestic energy The Hindu.
The economic losses due to air pollution are more established than ever and its disproportionate impact on the working class continues. The health ramifications of ambient air pollution in India are often linked to increased morbidity and mortality from cardiovascular diseases with particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10) often exceed the WHO guidelines which not only have disproportionate impacts on societal creations of class and caste hierarchy, and gender divisions but also are also susceptible to vulnerable populations such as children and the elderly. Many argued that the efforts in reducing air pollution can be viewed from an economic lens, through investment in human capital.
Despite the introduction of multiple policies aimed at mitigating air pollution, effective implementation remains hindered by insufficient coordination, lax enforcement, and challenges at the local governance level. From a sociological standpoint, it is evident that socio-economic disparities and geographical variables significantly influence individuals’ vulnerability to pollution, relegating marginalized communities and rural-urban migrants to the most at-risk groups.
One such story goes of a village, Chilika Daad of Uttar Pradesh, beautifully highlighted by PARI Network, how the residents are afflicted with the coal curse, faced displacement twice due to development projects and had to endure chronic air pollution from nearby coal mining, exacerbating coal mining and socioeconomic deprivation because of their livelihoods, in dairy farming, plummeted.
Navigating the Policy Landscape:
The government of India through its National Clean Air Programme (NCAP), inaugurated in 2019, the first of its kind, attempts to mitigate PM2.5 and PM10 levels with a targeted reduction of 20-30% by 2024 which has now been set to be accomplished by 2026 with a slightly higher target of 40%. Although ambitious, the NCAP has been criticized for its non-binding framework and lack of enforceable objectives. While Mission LiFE (Lifestyle for Environment) aims to integrate State-level air action plans, initiatives such as ‘Ek Ped Ma ke Naam’ promote community-based afforestation linked to NCAP.
There remain critical gaps in the implementation of NCAP, particularly in institutional strengthening and financial efficiency. Despite the establishment of the “PRANA” portal, forecasting systems in non-attainment cities remain deficient with only Delhi, having a functional model signaling a discrepancy between objectives and execution. The uneven improvements in air quality, with cities like Byrnihat in Meghalaya and Begusarai in Bihar exhibiting PM10 concentrations far beyond NAAQS and WHO, limits reflect the widespread air pollution exacerbated by rural areas’ lack of monitoring stations and restricted data transparency.
Incentives such as the 15th Finance Commission’s Million Plus Cities Challenge Fund which caters to performance-based funding, though have helped some cities like Pune and Bengaluru. However there are policy implementation concerns among experts as Delhi faces difficulties meeting the air quality standard, largely due to fragmented cooperation among the National Capital Region (NCR) states, hindering collaborating actions against vehicular emissions and stubble burning.
The Centre for Science and Environment’s report highlights that while policies like Swachh Vayu Survekshan (hereafter SVS) 2024, which was launched to rank cities based on their air quality management efforts in sectors such as biomass, road dust, public awareness, municipal solid waste, besides improvement in PM10 concentrations has helped cities like Agra, Delhi, Jabalpur to perform well under it but performed poorly under NCAP for reducing PM10, reflecting a mismatch between and action and improvements.
Despite initiatives from the Punjab, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh governments, crop stubble burning remains a critical source of air pollution in the NCR. The implementation of equipment subsidies and decomposers bio-capsules under NCAP has fallen short primarily due to low adoption rates among farmers. Economic constraints often compel small farmers to resort to stubble burning as the most cost-effective land-clearing method.
Post 2021, when the Commission on Air Quality Management (CAQM) which was set up for the NCR region became operational, had many interventions that have accelerated actions including the use of bio-decomposers and distribution of happy-seeders or coming up with Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP), though its guidelines have now been made stricter because of scantiness.
Despite achievements in the FAME ⅠⅠ under the National Electric Mobility Mission Plan (NEMMP), such as the sale of over 1.1 million EVs and the registration of numerous manufacturers, challenges remain, including non-compliance among Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), rural adoption hurdles, and an overall penetration of just 5% compared to global leaders.
Conclusion
India faces a daunting challenge with air pollution. While there are many initiatives, real on-ground action should be incentivized. Transparency in the reporting of actions in cities to deepen understanding of solutions implemented in cities is paramount. Experts call for a more integrated multi-sector, regional convergence of schemes and policies approach for improvement in PM2.5 levels which is a more relevant health indicator to assess improvement in air quality.
References
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Pandey, A., Brauer, M., Cropper, M. L., Balakrishnan, K., Mathur, P., Dey, S., et al. (2021). Health and economic impact of air pollution in the states of India: The Global Burden of Disease Study 2019. The Lancet Planetary Health, 5(1), e25–e38. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2542-5196(20)30298-9.
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