AIR POLLUTION MANAGEMENT IN URBAN AREAS
With growing urbanization and increase in population, density and accumulation of development activities many urban areas have been reporting increased air pollution levels. Today air pollution is a serious environmental problem – especially in the developing countries.
Source: https://www.iqa ir.com/world-most-polluted-cities
India has been vulnerable to air pollution for the past two decades, owing to population growth, increasing number vehicles, increased consumption of fuels, inefficient transportation systems, poor land-use patterns, industrialisation, and ineffective environmental regulations (Zhao, 2010). In 2019 alone, air pollution caused over 17,000 premature deaths and an economic loss of 1,207 million USD in the National Capital (Pandey, et al., 2021). The average life expectancy in India would have been upto 1.7 years higher if the air pollution levels were less than the minimal level causing health loss (IIPH, 2020). D’Amato, et al. (2015) predicted that increased temperatures due to climatic change and rising levels of air pollutants will cause an increase in airborne allergens. Such an increase will cause increased respiratory diseases, asthma cases, or other allergic illness. And health deterioration due to emissions of pollutants leads to premature deaths, lung cancer and fall in labour productivity.
In India residential emissions from households using solid fuels for heating and cooking, emission from industry, power plants, agriculture, and transport, and natural dust all contribute to poor air quality, though to differing levels in different states. There is a significant contribution of secondary PM2.5 formed by reactions involving other pollutants. Studies examining how emissions from different sectors have contributed to overall ambient concentrations of pollution in the air that people breathe across Indian states reinforce the cross-sector and cross-border nature of pollution in India. (World Bank, 2020)
Source: Clearing the Air: A tale of three cities, World Bank, 2020
Source: Clearing the Air: A tale of three cities, World Bank, 2020
Air quality in cities is the result of a complex interaction between natural and anthropogenic environmental conditions. The air pollution path of the urban atmosphere consists of emission and transmission of air pollutants resulting in the ambient air pollution. Each part of the path is influenced by different factors. Emissions from transportation are a very important source group throughout the world. During transmission, air pollutants are dispersed, diluted and subjected to photochemical reactions. Ambient air pollution shows temporal and spatial variability. (Mayer, 1999 )
The main legislation that governs air pollution management in India is the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act (“Air Act”), first issued in 1981 and amended in 1987. The Air Act empowers the Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change (MoEFCC), and its subordinate institutions, Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and the state pollution control boards (SPCBs), to perform a range of functions to help prevent, control, and abate air pollution in the country. Pollution control boards also have powers to prescribe and enforce emission standards for stationary and mobile source of air pollution, in coordination with other government agencies. Regulators also monitor emission levels and have the authority to shut down or disconnect water or power to non-compliant units. Fines and imprisonment can be pursued through courts. For mobile source of pollution, vehicles, as in much of the world, India relies on emission standards for newly manufactured vehicles along with fuel quality standards. In critically polluted areas (including Non- Attainment cities), pollution boards can also prohibit the use of certain fuels and burning of any materials deemed to cause air pollution and mandate the use of certain pollution control equipment. For example, use of pet coke and furnace oil has been restricted in Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR), and brick kilns are required to use prescribed technologies to reduce air pollution in this area. This provision also allows SPCBs to restrict trash burning in non-attainment areas.
Growth and Development of Delhi and Air Pollution
Understanding the drivers and growth of air pollution in an urban atmosphere is highly crucial to analyze the causes of pollution and identifying suitable mitigation options. Delhi presents a case of a rapidly growing metropolis with consistently high levels of air pollution.
It is now nearly three decades since the city of Delhi has been tackling the rising pollution in the atmosphere. The average total suspended particulate (TSP) level in Delhi in 1991-1994 was roughly five-times the WHO’s annual average standard (Cropper Maureen L, 1997). Furthermore, the total suspended particulate levels in Delhi exceeded the World Health Organization's 24-h standard on 97% of all days on which readings were taken. MOEFCC (1997) reviewed the environmental situation in Delhi over worries of degrading conditions. It was assessed that about 3000 metric tons of air pollutants were emitted every day in the city, with a major contribution from vehicular pollution (67%), followed by coal-based thermal power plants (12%). The concentrations of carbon monoxide from vehicular emissions in 1996 showed an increment of 92% over the values noted in 1989, consequent upon the increase in vehicular population. Also, Delhi has the highest cluster of small-scale industries in India that contributes to 12% of air pollutants along with other industrial units (SA Rizwan, 2013).
The formulation of the city region of NCT Delhi into the National Capital Region (NCR) shows the sprawl tendencies of urban growth in Delhi. Sprawled over 34,000 sq. km area, NCR ( the current Draft has a modified boundary ) is the country’s largest planning region with a population of roughly 46 million. As can be seen from the figure below, Delhi has expanded to a large extent.
The city is vulnerable to elevated pollution levels because it lies in the land-locked Indo-Gangetic plain. The Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP) encounters frequent dust storms each year during the pre- monsoon season (March– June); (Bhattacharjee, et al. (2007); Dey, et al. (2004); Prasad and Singh (2007)). Dust storms observed in India come either from the Thar Desert situated in the western parts of India or from far off of the Arabian Peninsula. Contingent on the wind speed, dust is observed in the IGP from the west and is transported over the eastern parts of India, up to West Bengal. Some of the time, depending upon the wind pattern, dust is redirected to the Central parts of India (Prasad & Singh, 2007). Also, Delhi is faced with the rising challenge of traffic congestion. The quantity of private vehicles (both two-wheelers and cars) is consistently ascending in the city. As of 2015, Delhi had 8.83 million vehicles, up from 0.56 million in 1981, and this is simply expected to rise (Malik, 2015). Frequent traffic jams across Delhi due to an increase in the number of personal vehicles further reduce the attractiveness of buses as the time taken by them increases due to the absence of dedicated bus corridors. This in turn makes people shift to private modes of transport, further adding to congestion and subsequently, the emissions associated with it.
Master Plan of Delhi and provisions for air pollution control
First Master Plan for Delhi was prepared in 1962 with the perspective up to the year 1981 and adopted a policy of large-scale land acquisition, development, and disposal by the Government with strict land-use zoning. The 1962 master plan called for the closure of polluting industries, but this provision received no further attention from the Delhi administration for almost three decades (Bell, 2005).
In 1990 a revised master plan for Delhi was endorsed that repeated the need to shut down hazardous and noxious industries as well as heavy and large industries. The list of industries prohibited in the 1962 master plan was expanded and included under the title ‘Hazardous and Noxious Industries’ and ‘Heavy and Large Industries’. No new industries of these types or the 81 types of ‘Extensive Industries’ were henceforth to be allowed in Delhi. Existing heavy and large industries were to be shifted out while existing F category industries in inappropriate areas were to be relocated (Bell, 2005). The plan gave the administration an additional three years to implement this provision. This deadline to relocate category industries also came and went without any response. Starting in 1996, the Supreme Court started to act and to drive the government to implement its relocation policies. Because of the court’s persistence, polluting industries were finally relocated by 1997. Apart from the industries, pollution arising out of the growth of the city was not discussed, thereby indicating that it did not exist as an issue at that point (Puri, 2012).
The Master Plan for Delhi, 2021, demarcated few locations as the ‘No Industrial Activity Zone’ where no industrial activity including household industry, shall be permitted. It widened the scope of household industrial units subject to adherence to pollution control norms and proposed the redevelopment of industrial concentration in non-conforming areas. Change in fuel for powerplants operating in NCT Delhi to gas-based plants was suggested and emphasis on the importance of public transport was touched. But, MPD 2021 does not provide any study as such of implications of land uses on air quality. It states the projected growth of vehicles and modal share over the years based on 2008 data. The severity of air quality as per the reports published by CPCB has been acknowledged in the Master Plan but no further details have been provided as to how the proposed land use plans and existing transportation network would impact the air quality. The existing zoning of industries in Delhi (as per Master Plan of Delhi, 2021) also does not support to betterment of air quality.
Court orders and directions to control air pollution in NCT Delhi
The Supreme Court’s involvement in policies to tackle air pollution in Delhi started with Public Interest Litigation brought to the court by M.C. Mehta in 1985. Worried about rising levels of air pollution and the government’s clear absence of interest in managing this growing problem, Mehta requested that the court direct various government ministries and departments to implement the Air Act of 1981 in Delhi.
In 1986, because of Mehta's appeal, the Supreme Court directed the Delhi administration to record a testimony indicating the steps it had taken to reduce air pollution. New enactment was incorporated by the central government like the 1986 Environment (Protection) Act, an amendment to the Air Act in 1987, the Motor Vehicles Act of 1988, and the Central Motor Vehicle Rules of 1989. The 1988 Motor Vehicles Act and the 1989 Central Motor Vehicle Rules explicitly added position to set principles for vehicular emissions for manufacturers and users. Accordingly, in 1990 vehicular exhaust emissions standards were set, forcing a few commitments on owners to maintain their vehicles so that they would not emit smoke, visible vapor, grit, sparks, ashes, or cinders (Agarwal, 1996). Ambient air quality standards were likewise endorsed for Delhi at this time (Bell, 2005). In 1996, the Supreme Court, issued a notice to the Delhi government to submit an action plan to control air pollution in the city. In December 1996, the Delhi government submitted its first action plan to combat air pollution. In acknowledgment of the requirement for technical help to guide the decision-making process and to guarantee implementation, the Supreme Court directed the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, or MOEFCC to set up an authority to advise the courts on pollution and to monitor the implementation of its orders. In January 1998, MOEF established the Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority (EPCA) for NCR which got dissolved in 2020 (PTI, 2020). Dissolving the 22-year-old Environmental Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority (EPCA) , the Centre has constituted a “permanent” body — the Commission for Air Quality Management in National Capital Region and Adjoining Areas. Encompassing Delhi, Punjab, Rajasthan, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, the all-powerful body assumes several powers to coordinate action among States, levy fines — ranging up to Rs. 1 crore or five years of prison — to address air pollution. The government has also launched the National Air Quality Monitoring Programme (NAMP), a network of monitoring stations across the country to constantly monitor key pollutants round the year.
In 2014, MOEFCC, alongside contributions from experts and civil society as well as the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, made the National Air Quality Index (NAQI) (Anisha Raman, 2019). In 2015, the Supreme Court orders on air pollution in Delhi related to control of vehicular pollution, industrial and construction sector pollution, power sector pollution, and agricultural sector (Chatterji, 2020). Among the actions, the court ordered to stop registrations of diesel cars and sport utility vehicles with an engine capacity of 2,000 cc and over. The court additionally requested all taxis in the Delhi region to switch to compressed natural gas and vehicles that are more than 10 years old to be prohibited from entering the capital.
The National Green Tribunal also referred to a Comprehensive Action Plan (CAP) for air pollution control for NCR by the Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority (EPCA) in consultation and Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) notified by the MoEF&CC in 2017 (CPCB, 2018). In 2018, the tribunal gave the order to all the States and Union Territories with nonattainment cities to prepare appropriate action plans aimed at bringing the standards of air quality within the prescribed norms. In 2019 likewise, the court gave different orders which have an immediate bearing on air quality to include action for management of bio-medical waste, plastic waste management, prohibiting polluting activity in polluted industrial areas, and remediation of legacy waste dump-sites in the country. In 2019, the government launched the National Clean Air Program (NCAP), a five-year action plan to tackle air pollution, build a pan-India air quality monitoring network, and improve citizen awareness (MOEFCC, 2019).
With these policy interventions, air quality has shown minor improvement in terms of emission rate. But it is not sufficient considering the results and more focused, time-bound initiatives at both city and national levels are required to address the issue. The pollutants emitted from the city are transported, dispersed or deposited by meteorological and topographical conditions. Thus, the resulting ground level concentration and pollutant flow patterns have to be estimated to save the environment.
Source Apportionment Studies for Delhi were carried out by (i) IIT Kanpur in May,2016, (ii) The Energy and Research Institute (TERI) in August,2018 and (iii) Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) in 2019 alongwith two emission inventories undertaken by Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM ), Pune in 2010 and 2018. In 2019 the National Green Tribunal had issued directions to assess Carrying Capacity of NCT Delhi on the environmental aspects; which has been prepared by SPA Delhi and submitted to Government of NCT Delhi in 2021. The study brought forth the impact of lockdown on air pollution and the need for a multi-scale strategy to control air pollution- Regional, City, Sub-City/Zonal, local levels
Global Concerns
Pollution, mostly associated as a by-product of urban landscapes, is also linked with climate change. Both climate change and air pollution are exacerbated by the burning of fossil fuels, which increase CO2 emissions, the cause of global warming. Together with the WHO and the Climate and Clean Air Coalition, UN Environment is part of the global Breathe Life campaign, helping to mobilize cities and encourage individuals to protect the planet from effects of air pollution.
In October 2018, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a report that “More than 40% of the world’s population – which includes 1 billion children under 15 - is exposed to high levels of household air pollution from mainly cooking with polluting technologies and fuels.” In developing countries, women frequently rely on coal and biomass fuels for cooking and heating, putting them and their and their children at higher risk to the effects of home pollutants. Ambient air pollution alongwith indoor air pollution has emerged as a major concern. The ambient air pollution is coupled with GHG emissions to understand the state of the Air Environment as both of these need to be addressed.