Opinion Supreme Court reproach should be a wake-up call for pollution watchdog

The sources of Delhi’s air pollution are well-known. Studies have shown that vehicular exhaust, industrial emissions, and dust from construction sites combine with the fumes from seasonal farm fires to create the national capital’s chronic public health hazard. Consensus has, however, been elusive on pinpointing which pollutant contributes how much, and at what time of the year, to the crisis. This lack of clarity has often come in the way of targeted interventions. The Commission for Air Quality Monitoring (CAQM), set up in 2020, was tasked to plug this breach. The persistence of the poor air problem is a testament to the failure of the agency of the Union environment ministry to deliver on its mandate. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court pulled up the Commission for “failing” to identify “the definite causes of the worsening AQI or their long-term solution”.

AQI data show that Delhi’s poor air burden is not a seasonal aberration but a round-the-year challenge that varies in intensity across months, weeks, days, and even hours. Addressing the high base pollution level requires a decisive regulator with unwavering attention towards the capital’s emission hotspots — industrial sites, areas with congested traffic, construction sites, and unpaved roads. Such monitoring is not only necessary for swift policy response, it’s also a precursor to generating real-time, granular data that can identify emerging trends before they escalate into an emergency. Continuous data streams can help align responses across agencies, including traffic police, transport authorities, municipal bodies and pollution control boards. But the lack of a coordinated approach has often been the Achilles’ heel of pollution control in the country. In the five years since its inception, the CAQM hasn’t stepped up adequately to this imperative. The agency has largely followed the tired, reactive approach of its predecessor, the Supreme Court-appointed Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority, in imposing bans and punitive measures. Even here, the CAQM has been found wanting at times, largely because the execution of its directives rests with state pollution boards, municipal bodies and law-enforcing authorities. Accountability has been the biggest casualty of this fragmented approach, which is also lacking in urgency. In September last year, for instance, the SC called out the CAQM because its subcommittees had met only once in three months.

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On Tuesday, the SC’s two-judge bench asked the CAQM to quantify emissions by each polluting source and then plan long-term solutions. The Court’s reproach should be a wake-up call to the pollution watchdog. It should also be a message to the Centre to address the agency’s structural infirmities.