90% of City-specific Clean Air Plans in India Lack Budget Outlines

Business Standard 90% of city-specific clean air plans in India lack budget outlines: Study

The study 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.

Only nine among 102 city-specific clean air plans have a budget outline for implenting their targets, a new study has found.

National capital Delhi is among cities that has no clear budget outline. "About 90 per cent of India's approved city-specific clean air plans do not have a budget outline," said the study, conducted by think tanks Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) and Urban Emissions. "....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," it said.

It said, 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.

The study 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.

"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 reveals 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 said.