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Journalism of Courage
THREE YEARS into the launch of India’s National Clean Air Program (NCAP) in 2019, analysis of pollution data shows there has been a marginal decrease in pollution levels in targeted cities. It also shows insufficient expenditure of funds by the states to ensure air pollution reduction.
The NCAP was launched with an aim to reduce pollution by 20-30 % by 2024, particularly in 132 non-attainment cities. The analysis shows pollution – in terms of PM 2.5 and PM 10 levels – has actually gone up in some cities such as Mumbai over past few years.
Under the NCAP, Rs 375.44 crore was provided to 114 cities from 2018-19 to 2020-2021 and Rs 290 crore allocated to 82 cities for 2021-2022. The programme has an allocation of Rs 700 crore envisaged for 2021-2026.
Data presented at the NCAP’s National Apex Committee recently, and analysed by the NCAP Tracker, shows that most states have underutilised the funds allotted. Only Bihar and Chandigarh used 76% and 81% of the funds received towards NCAP. Uttar Pradesh, which has many of India’s most-polluted cities, used 16% of the allocated Rs 60 crore.
The NCAP was launched in 2019 to address air pollution in 102 cities, to which 30 more cities were added later. These 132 cities are called non-attainment cities as they did not meet the national ambient air quality standards for the 2011-15 under the National Air Quality Monitoring Program. The country’s current annual safe limits for PM 2.5 and PM 10 are 40 micrograms/per cubic metre (ug/m3) and 60 micrograms/per cubic metre. The NCAP has set a target of reducing key air pollutants PM10 and PM2.5 (ultra-fine particulate matter) by 20-30% by 2024, taking the pollution levels in 2017 as the base year.
With 18 non-attainment cities — the most in a state — Maharashtra has used less than 8% of its Rs 51 crore. This despite the fact that, according to Continuous Ambient Air Quality Monitoring System data, Mumbai, Navi Mumbai and Nashik saw pollution levels increase from 2019 to 2021.
The 15th Finance Commission had allotted Rs 4,400 crore for the NCAP programme.
“We were stepping up activity on NCAP, but the work got stalled by the third Covid wave. The regional meetings, including meetings for the Delhi-NCR region by the Air Quality Management Commission, will resume next month,” said a senior Environment Ministry official. “One thing that the Environment Ministry is looking at doing now is a convergence of all air pollution-related schemes on one platform, including schemes such as urban forests, which we believe will help reduce air pollution in cities. We will also take a re-look at vehicular pollution norms and industrial pollution norms.”
The NCAP Tracker analysis shows that amongst the non-attainment cities, Varanasi, while continuing to be one of the most polluted cities, has recorded the highest reduction in air pollution. Its annual PM 2.5 levels reduced 52% from 91 ug/m3 in 2019 to 44 ug/m3 in 2021 and its PM 10 levels reduced 54% from 202 ug/m3 in 2019 to 93 ug/m3 last year.
The other cities that have already met reduction target of at least 20% were Hoogly in West Bengal where PM 2.5 and PM 10 reduced by 42% and 40%, respectively, and Talcher in Odisha, which saw a PM 2.5 reduction of 20% and PM 10 reduction of 53%.
Navi Mumbai’s PM 2.5 levels increased from 39 ug/m3 to 53 ug/m3 and PM 10 levels increased from 96 ug/m3 to 122 ug/m3 from 2019 to 2021. Ghaziabad with annual PM 2.5 levels above 100 remained at the top of the table in the most-polluted cities except 2020 when Lucknow ranked first.
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