Despite India’s claims of progress in reducing air pollution through the National Clean Air Programme, the country is far behind targets and even ranked among 10 most polluted nations last year. But this is a problem compounded by many unimplemented recommendations – made by government committees, non-government organisations, and research institutions over the years.
For example, a report by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science and Technology, Environment, Forests and Climate change had in 2023 recommended the Centre to revisit its monitoring framework for NCAP. It had highlighted the need for qualitative apart from quantitative data, and the inclusion of public experience and social audit as parameters. But those parameters are yet to be revised.
Newslaundry audited several such recommendations, most of them made after 2022, and found that many are yet to be implemented.
#1: Air quality standards status quo
In 2022, CSIR-National Institute of Science Communication and Policy Research, under the aegis of the Union Ministry of Science and Technology, had suggested a stringent revision of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards. But they remain unchanged since 2009 and are much more lenient as compared to the WHO air quality standards which were revised in 2021 – for example, the PM2.5 standard under NAAQS is 40 µg/m3 while the WHO wants it limited to 5µg/m³.
The same paper also recommended expanding the scope of the monitoring stations in rural areas. However, the Central Pollution Control Board’s website only shows a rural network of 26 stations in 26 villages as of November 2024. The number stood at 26 even in 2020, as per a response to a Lok Sabha query, suggesting a slow pace of expansion.
Sensor ambient air quality monitors are absent. They were recommended in a 2022 report by IIT Delhi’s Centre for Atmospheric Sciences and Centre of Excellence for Research on Clean Air, and in 2023 by private thinktank Centre for Science and Environment Analysis. Between November 2020 and May 2021, a total of 40 SAAQMs, manufactured by four Indian companies, were installed alongside the existing continuous ambient air quality monitoring stations under a pilot project in Maharashtra. This project and SAAQMs were rejected in 2023.
Last year, a report by IIT Delhi’s TRIP-Centre had pointed out that most cities lacked the minimum recommended number of monitoring stations. Of 562 CAAQM stations across the country as per the CPCB website, only 473 are fully operational, according to the Central Control Room for Air Quality Management. And 186 cities have just one monitoring station each to themselves.
In 2019, the Fifteenth Financial Commission had recommended monitoring aerosol optical depth – a measure of aerosols such as smoke and sea salt within a column of air. In 2023, Union Environment Minister Ashwini Kumar Chaubey told the Lok Sabha that the AOD data cannot be used “for regulatory purposes”.
In December 2022, a panel formed by the NGT had recommended that waste management must focus on accurately quantifying waste generation, ensuring 100 percent door-to-door collection of segregated waste, promoting material recovery and recycling, minimising the disposal of fresh waste in landfills, and fully remediating or treating legacy waste. But as per government estimates, of 2,425 dumpsites across India, remediation is completed only in 697.
#2: Ujjwala scheme has high pendency
Clean fuel is an essential strategy to tackle toxic air. This was one of the reasons to launch the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana, which aims to provide poor households with access to LPG cylinders, safeguarding their health by reducing the serious risks associated with the use of traditional cooking fuels like firewood, coal, and cow dung.
But there is a high pendency of applications. In 2022-23, a report by the Standing Committee on Petroleum and Natural Gas had pointed to 8.4 lakh pending applications. As of January 1, 2025, there were 29.02 lakh pending applications across the country, with no timeline established for clearing this pendency as per a reply in Rajya Sabha.
#3: Gas-based plants underutilised
Gas-based power capacities in the NCR region are currently underutilised; they have the potential to meet 50 percent of Delhi’s power demand, yet they currently supply only 20 percent, according to the CII-NITI Aayog’s clean fuel report. There are only 62 gas-based power plants across India, according to government estimates. And last year, Union minister RK Singh told Money Control that there was no plan to increase investment. The need for cleaner fuels to generate power was also reiterated by a NITI Aayog report in 2019 stressing on an action plan for clean industry.
In 2019, the Fifteenth Financial Commission had recommended the recovery of methane – a harmful gas emitted from large quantities of waste – at dumpsites for power generation. However, Delhi currently has no biomethanation plants, and across India, there are only 126 such plants with a combined capacity of just 4,338 tonnes per day.
#4: Less than 30% dumpsites treating waste
In December 2022, a panel formed by the NGT had recommended that waste management must focus on accurately quantifying waste generation, ensuring 100 percent door-to-door collection of segregated waste, promoting material recovery and recycling, minimising the disposal of fresh waste in landfills, and fully remediating or treating legacy waste. But as per government estimates, of 2,425 dumpsites across India, remediation is completed only in 697.
#5: Thermal plants miss deadlines
Thermal power plants are another major source of air pollution. However, according to a December 2024 report by National Environmental Engineering Research Institute, supported by NITI Aayog, there is currently no air quality monitoring network in India specifically designed to assess the impact of emissions from TPPs. The report recommended setting up an additional network or the addition of a few parameters to the existing National Air Quality Monitoring Programme. These parameters included elemental sulphur, particulate sulphate, and nitrate. But they are yet to be added to the national air monitoring programme list.
The report also suggested that “an appropriate decision may be taken by the concerned authority regarding the installation of FGD (Flue Gas Desulphurisation) in TPPs, considering that the ambient SO2 concentration is well below the prescribed limit”. In 2015, the Narendra Modi government set up a two-year deadline to install flue gas desulphurisation – a process to regulate SO2 emissions – at all the coal-powered plants across India. But FGD has been installed in only 44 of the total 537 units earmarked for such installations so far.
#6: Monitoring cell not in place
A 2022 report of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Low Carbon Technologies recommended setting up an energy monitoring cell to monitor energy efficiency and CO2 emissions of MSME steel sector. This monitoring cell is yet to come into effect.
#7: Electric four-wheeler U-turn
A 2023 report by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Industry recommended that the Centre increase the number of electric vehicles supported in the four-wheelers category and include private electric four-wheelers under the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles in India II Scheme, with a cap based on the vehicle’s cost and battery capacity.
The committee also pointed out that the initial target under FAME II was to support 55,000 electric four-wheelers. But the target was revised to just 11,000. FAME II was subsequently replaced last year by the PM E-DRIVE scheme, which makes no mention of electric four-wheelers as a category.
The scheme mentions components such as subsidies and demand incentives for electric two-wheelers, three-wheelers, ambulances, trucks, and other emerging EV categories. Environmentalist Jai Dhar Gupta said, “Combustion vehicles lobbyists might play a role since they don’t want to incur a loss. The incentive for electric four-wheelers was withdrawn very quickly before it got to a tipping point.”
#8: Biomass pellets behind target
In 2023-24, the Standing Committee on Energy’s report mentioned that the required manufacturing capacity for biomass pellets – compressed organic waste used as fuel – in India is at 1 lakh tonnes per day but it stands at around 7,000 TPD. The target of 1 lakh TPD is in line with India’s biomass policy after its revision in 2023. This is despite the renewable energy ministry’s biomass programme focussing on the establishment of biomass pellet manufacturing plants.
Manoj Kumar, researcher at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, said, “Many parties even in Delhi claim to reduce pollution by whatever percentage, but all of those are just agendas. All these recommendations are lost in the political blame game. If there are some commitments you have made, you should act on them.”
Newslaundry reached out to all the ministries named in this report. This copy will be updated if a response is received.
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