Curbing Air Pollution

Curbing Air Pollution

Subject: Environment

• According to a report by the World Bank, curbing air pollution in India needs efforts across South Asia.
• According to the report, existing measures by the government can reduce particulate matter, significant reduction is possible only if the territories spanning the airsheds implement coordinated policies.

Highlights of the report:

• Currently over 60% of South Asians are exposed to an average 35 g/m3 of PM2.5 annually.
• In some parts of the Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP) it spiked to as much as 100 g/m3 – nearly 20 times the upper limit of 5 g/m3 recommended by the World Health Organisation.
• According to the report, India has six large airsheds, some of them shared with Pakistan, between which air pollutants move.
• The six major airsheds in South Asia where air quality in one affected the other were:
• West/Central IGP: Punjab (Pakistan), Punjab (India), Haryana, part of Rajasthan, Chandigarh, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh;
• Central/Eastern IGP: Bihar, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Bangladesh;
• Middle India: Odisha/Chhattisgarh;
• Middle India: Eastern Gujarat/Western Maharashtra;
• Northern/Central Indus River Plain: Pakistan, part of Afghanistan; and
• Southern Indus Plain and further west: South Pakistan, Western Afghanistan extending into Eastern Iran.
• When the wind direction was predominantly northwest to the southeast, 30% of the air pollution in Indian Punjab came from the Punjab Province in Pakistan and, on average, 30% of the air pollution in the largest cities of Bangladesh (Dhaka, Chittagong, and Khulna) originated in India.
• In some years, substantial pollution flowed in the other direction across borders.
• If Delhi National Capital Territory were to fully implement all air pollution control measures by 2030 while other parts of South Asia continued to follow current policies, it wouldn’t keep pollution exposure below 35 g/m3.
• However if other parts of South Asia also adopted all feasible measures it would bring pollution below that number.
• Hence, environmental experts suggest a airshed approach to curb air pollution in the south asian region.
• The Centre in 2019 launched a programme called the National Clean Air Campaign (NCAP) that aims to reduce air pollution in 131 of India’s most polluted cities.
• The target was initially to cut pollution by 20%-30% by 2024 over 2017 levels but has now been revised to cutting it by 40% by 2025-26.

About NCAP

• It was launched by the MoEFCC in January 2019.
• It is the first-ever effort in the country to frame a national framework for air quality management with a time-bound reduction target.
• It seeks to cut the concentration of coarse (particulate matter of diameter 10 micrometer or less, or PM10) and fine particles (particulate matter of diameter 2.5 micrometer or less, or PM2.5) by at least 20% in the next five years, with 2017 as the base year for comparison.
• The plan includes 102 non-attainment cities, across 23 states and Union territories, which were identified by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) on the basis of their ambient air quality data between 2011 and 2015.
• Non-attainment cities: These are those that have fallen short of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for over five years.