National Clean Air Programme

GS Paper 3

Syllabus: Environment Pollution, Geography

Source: The Hindu

Context: Four years since the Centre launched the National Clean Air Campaign (NCAP), analysts found that progress has been slow and pollution has only incrementally reduced in most cities.

The Launch: In January 2019, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) launched the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) to prepare clean air action plans.

The mandate of the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP); –

• The goal of NCAP (annual average ambient air quality standards at all locations in the country): 20%–30% reduction of PM2.5 and PM10 concentration by taking 2017 as the base year for the comparison of concentration.
• Under NCAP, 132 non-attainment cities have been identified across the country based on the Air Quality data from 2014-2018.
• Preparation of the city-specific action plans including measures to strengthen the monitoring network, reduce vehicular/industrial emissions, and increase public awareness.
• Implementation of the city-specific action plans to be regularly monitored by Committees at the Central and State level namely Steering Committee, Monitoring Committee and Implementation Committee.

Objectives of NCAP

• To augment and evolve effective and proficient ambient air quality monitoring networks across the country for ensuring a comprehensive and reliable database
• To have efficient data dissemination and public outreach mechanism for timely measures for the prevention and mitigation of air pollution
• To have a feasible management plan for the prevention, control and abatement of air pollution.

Performance of National Clean Air Programme: 

Positive

• Monitoring station: Out of the targeted 1500 manual monitoring stations to be installed across the country, 818 have been installed.
• Region-specific programme: city-specific action plan has been developed for all the major cities of India. For instance, Delhi, Mumbai etc.
  • 131 cities of the country have developed City Action Plans and Micro Action Plans
• PRANA web portal: The Portal for Regulation of Air Pollution in Non-Attainment Cities which provides all information related to various policies/programs/schemes/activities of the stakeholders along with the progress made towards improvement in air quality across the country.
• Improvement: There has been an overall improvement in Particulate Matter concentration in 95 cities including 20 cities conforming to the National Ambient Air Quality Standards in the year 2021-22 compared to 2017. 

The issue facing NCAP:

• Unsatisfactory performance: The CSE in its national analysis of PM2.5 levels in cities for which data is available found that between 2019 and 2021, only 14 of 43 (NCAP) cities registered a 10% or more reduction in their PM2.5 level between 2019 and 2021.
  • On the other hand, out of 46 non-NCAP cities, 21 recorded significant improvement in their annual PM2.5 value with a 5% or more decline between 2019 and 2021.
  • There is hardly any difference between the performance of NCAP and non-NCAP cities between 2019 and 2021.
• Funding issue: For disbursing funds, the Central Pollution Control Board, which coordinates the programme, only considers levels of PM10, the relatively larger, coarser particles. However, PM2.5, the smaller, more dangerous particles, aren’t monitored as robustly in all cities, mostly due to the lack of equipment.
• Compartmentalizing rural-urban areas: The scheme focuses on air pollution mitigation within cities while ignoring rural air pollution thus compartmentalizing both. But cities like Delhi are significantly affected by rural air pollution, hence making purely city-based efforts less ineffective.
• Sluggish improvement: The progress is even more sluggish in equipping all manual stations with PM2.5 monitoring, where only 261 stations have PM2.5 monitoring facilities.
• Almost a quarter of NCAP cities with real-time monitoring doesn’t meet the minimum data completeness requirement: In 2021, 15 out of the 63 NCAP cities (24 per cent) did not meet the minimum data completeness requirement (60 days of valid 24-hour values in each quarter of the year). In 2019, the number was lower: only 16 per cent did not meet the requirement.
• No carrying capacity studies: None of the 132 non-attainment cities has completed their carrying capacity studies. Carrying capacity is the region’s ability to accumulate and disperse emissions while maintaining breathable air quality.
  • In 93 cities, the study is either undergoing or at the MoU/proposal stage. 

Conclusion

It is important that NCAP be made legally binding on responsible authorities while setting interim (WHO interim targets) and long-term targets to achieve breathable air equivalent to WHO guideline levels over the next decade.

Further, enhancing transparency in the allocation and utilisation of finances and tracking the indicators through publicly available information under the PRANA web portal developed by CPCB can be a way forward. 

Mains Links:

 Q. Highlighting the major mandate and objectives of the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP), evaluate its performance in mitigating pollution in Indian Cities. (15M)

Prelims Links