India’s 102 city clean air plans proving ineffective

By Naz Asghar

June 10, 2020

Delhi: India’s 102 approved city-specific clean air plans have become ineffective owning to various reasons like lack of information on emission sources and on-ground pollution control measures  besides absence of a standard protocol in addition to shortage of budget etc, says a study by CEEW (Council on Energy, Environment and Water.

One more surprising revelation made by the study was that apart from Delhi’s clean air plan, other city-specific clean air plans also do not have a legal mandate for implementation.

Multiplicity of agencies is another problem that plagues these plans. It was found that pollution control boards are in charge of only 24% of the mitigation activities listed in the plans, while 37% comes under the ambit of municipal corporations and urban local bodies (ULBs). Over 40% of the action points listed fall under the purview of multiple agencies. Besides, none of the plans propose a regional coordination mechanism, although about 30% of the pollution is from sources outside the city boundaries.

The study ‘How Robust are Urban India’s Clean Air Plans?: An Assessment of 102 cities’, was released here on Wednesday amind unlocking of economic and other human activities, whose shut down during the Corona lockdown had resulted in marked reduction in pollution.

Overall, the study states that the plans stand as a collection of measures without specified goals and priorities. Besides, the lack of a national emission inventory and the absence of a standard protocol for air pollution emission reporting across states hinder the setting of emission reduction targets.

Tanushree Ganguly, a researcher at CEEW and a co-author of the study, said, “The clampdown on all non-essential activities because of the pandemic and the resultant decline in pollution levels have made the environmental footprint of economic activity in our cities extremely evident. In order to ensure that blue skies become permanent, cities should be absolutely certain of their short, medium, and long-term air pollution reduction goals. State and municipal budgets also need to reflect planned expenditure on air pollution mitigation. Finally, to meet the democratic demand for clean air, pollution control boards and city authorities should create trackable indicators to oversee the progress of implementation of these plans.”

The National Clean Air Programme (NCAP), launched in January 2019, has listed the preparation and implementation of city-specific air quality management plans as a primary mitigation measure for reducing PM 2.5 concentration by 20% to 30% by 2024. However, the CEEW-Urban Emissions study finds that 14 of Uttar Pradesh’s 15 non-attainment cities have identical plans. So do multiple cities in Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir (now a Union Territory), Nagaland, Odisha, Rajasthan, and Uttarakhand.

Moreover, over 70% of the actions mentioned involve overseeing, planning, proposing, preparing, investigating, identifying, ensuring, strengthening, training, studying, and engaging. Meanwhile, less than 30% of the interventions call for on-ground pollution control measures. Transport is the most discussed sector in most plans, accounting for 38% of the total mitigation measures.

“Based on the review of the plans, the areas that need immediate attention include, i) an emissions database representative of spatial and temporal variation and ii) a coordinating agency to act on the policies and monitor progress,” Dr Sarath Guttikunda, one of the co-authors of the study and the founder of Urban Emissions said.

“Execution of mitigation measures calls for cross-departmental coordination. For instance, action plans of 15 non-attainment cities in Uttar Pradesh list 56 measures across 17 different agencies. Of these, about 30% of actions fall under multiple agencies and this could fragment the accountability. Hence, for each action point, it is crucial to delineate specific tasks among participating agencies,” Kurinji Selvaraj, a researcher at CEEW and a co-author of the study, said.

In the Union Budget for 2020-21, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had allocated INR 4,400 crore “to encourage such states that are formulating and implementing plans for ensuring cleaner air in cities (with population) above one million”. However, only nine cities have listed budgetary requirements for executing the action points listed.

–India News Stream