Critical Analysis of the Air Pollution Issue in India

Air Pollution: An Unprecedented Problem

Air pollution has come to take mammoth proportions and brings associated health problems not just in winters but of late it has become a perennial problem at scale. Rapid urbanization, waste and construction dust, industrialization, power generation activities and other activities with sub-optimal pollution control measures have led to increasing air pollution levels in India. These increasing pollution levels are not just limited to cities but have also reached village at levels not seen before. Health impacts such as cardio-vascular diseases, lower respiratory problems, asthma, lung cancer, dementia and other long term illnesses are now real in India and air pollution has been declared a public health emergency multiple times.

The response to the problem has more often been
a knee-jerk reaction and there are no long-term solutions in sight.
Till date it has been driven by Judiciary, particularly, National Green Tribunal and state machinery viz. PCBs. State governments and
PCBs are found wanting for resources and mechanisms necessary for implementing the usual command and control policy approaches.

The Policy Framework

The first and nation-wide action plan to contain and reduce the air pollution levels is National Clean Air Programme (NCAP). NCAP lacks urgent response to the challenge and also does not focus on underlying causes. Rather, it lays too much stress on the measurement and monitoring of the sources of pollution and further falls short of moving towards international ambient air quality standards in its ambition as it targets only 20-30% reduction. It fails to address the systemic problems such as pollution concentration zones and reasons thereof, non-compliance of emission norms, lack of enforcement mechanisms, lack of coordination among different agencies and no centralized agency to drive impact.        

        

The government does not intend to notify it under Environment protection act or any other air pollution related act with a clear mandate for cities and villages to plug the gaps with effective implementation. The institutional arrangement calls for an apex committee at the central level by MoEFCC, a committee under secretary at the state level and committee under municipal commissioner at the city level but going by similar legislations and arrangement in revised waste management laws for plastic and solid waste, the committees remain only on paper to say the least. The targets are also not legally binding, leaving much room for states to maneuver them. Standardization in air quality monitoring, source apportionment based studies, scientific assessment of various sources and non-allocation of funds for those studies are some of other shortcomings.

Setting reduction targets and a fresh budget outlay of 4400 crores which is almost 10 times the last NCAP budget is a welcome change but there needs to be clear way forward on how this budget would be spent and it is imperative that government now brings forward a truly multi-sectoral and collaboration led strategy to achieve a real reduction in air pollution levels.

NCAP relies on existing mechanism of enforcing regulatory and command & control means of curbing air pollution. It has been proved time and again that it is enforcement and implementation of policies that hinders the progress in most of the matters of national concern. The policy should focus on decentralized mechanisms with greater delegations of powers and unhindered decision making to drive impact. The policy should be effective and challenge the status quo while implementing newer and innovative means of implementation.

Policy Recommendations

National Clean Air Programme remains more an advisory and lacks strong implementation vision. It is a monitoring and data compilation exercise with zero visibility on how to really clear the air. Some of the shortcomings which need to be addressed are:

• Strengthening the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP)

o   Link NCAP to an act under the parliament or any statutory act.

o   Putting implementation first approach with focus not just on urban areas and cities but village level also.

o   Heavy Penal provisions on missing targets, unchecked emissions and emissions over the limit and time-bound emission setting for every industry. Penal provisions for municipal corporations and other government departments as well.

o   Strengthening oversight mechanisms, state pollution boards, judiciary and centralizing implementation systems while keeping independence of states.

o   Time-bound and source apportionment based target setting and achievement.

• Implement market based mechanisms

o   Moving beyond command and control mechanisms.

o   Emission trading scheme for select industries on pilot basis with rollout to other suitable industries based on successes.

o   Promotion of environmentally beneficial subsidies such as LPG, CNG; promotion of alternative and clean energy generation sources such as solar, wind, water, nuclear facilities; improving efficiencies and promotion of innovative technologies in existing set ups.

o   Taxes and Surcharges based on emissions

o   Polluter pays principle with tradable permits. 

• Real time pollution data, tracking and dynamic policies 

o   Making real time pollution data readily available to masses including easy terminologies and the health impact matrix.

o   Dynamic policies and fund allocation to match with the pollution levels across cities and villages. 

• Other policy measures

o   Implementation based on scientific assessments and studies, health benefits and sources of pollution.

o   Stress to be laid on coordination among all policy and implementation agencies without boundary restriction across states/districts/cities.

o   Capacity building across state and central enforcement authorities with consideration of establish centralized command centre.

o   Awareness approach to be adopted for information outreach to masses regarding health impacts, air quality, pollutant information and real time pollution data. 

Air pollution remains an understudied domain but its health impacts are now much clearer than ever. It remains an invisible killer and the underlying nature of the problem keeps immediate solutions at bay. The policy and implementation should immediately focus on tackling it head on in a more systemic manner taking all central and state agencies along. A need for a much more coordinated effort is required to reform the whole system and address it through a proactive approach.