Chennai: A new study has found that only nine among 102 approved city-specific clean air plans have a budget outline for the execution of proposed air pollution mitigation activities, while the rest of them, including Delhi, lack it.
“As India gradually emerges from a lockdown, air pollution in its cities is again on the rise,’ said the study titled ‘How Robust are Urban India’s Clean Air Plans?: An Assessment of 102 cities”.
The study, conducted by think tanks Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) and Urban Emissions, said, “About 90 per cent of India’s approved city-specific clean air plans do not have a budget outline.”
It added: “And 75 per cent of them do not contain crucial information on emission from different polluting sources, leading to replication of action points and timelines across many highly-polluted cities.”
According to the study, the cities with a budget outline for pollution-mitigation activities are: Amravati, Badlapur, Mumbai, Nashik, Pune and Solapur (all in Maharashtra), Dimapur and Kohima (in Nagaland), and Patencheru in Telangana.
It also found that apart from Delhi’s clean air plan, other city-specific clean air plans also do not have a legal mandate for implementation.
The research claims that multiplicity of agencies is another problem that plagues these plans.
“It was found that pollution control boards are in charge of only 24 per cent of the mitigation activities listed in the plans, while 37 per cent come under the ambit of municipal corporations and urban local bodies (ULBs),” it added.
According to the study, “Over 40 per cent of the action points listed fall under the purview of multiple agencies. Besides, none of the plans proposes a regional coordination mechanism, although about 30 per cent of the pollution is from sources outside the city boundaries.”