India’s air pollution crisis is not just a seasonal inconvenience. It’s a persistent, silent pandemic that chokes our lungs every winter and quietly lingers throughout the year. Hospitals overflow with respiratory cases, schools shut down, cities disappear under layers of smog, and Indian metros regularly top global pollution rankings.
Given the scale of this crisis, it’s worth asking: what is India actually doing to clean its air? While initiatives like the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP), Bharat VI, the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY), and targeted efforts to phase out coal-burning industries in the National Capital Region mark important progress, the national response remains fragmented and slow-moving. Without stronger alignment and faster implementation, transformative change may remain out of reach.
Tuning in to ground realities
The challenge begins with how India understands air pollution. It’s often seen as a technical problem when in reality it’s a complex structural issue shaped by governance capacity, demographic pressure, socio-economic disparity, behavioural norms, and entrenched economic systems. Scientists play a vital role in diagnosing air quality — like physicians identifying symptoms — but lasting solutions depend on those working on the ground: municipal officers, planners, engineers, and community leaders. These actors operate within tight budgets, outdated infrastructure, and competing local demands. Strengthening their capacity and aligning mandates with air quality goals is essential for sustained change.
This complexity becomes especially relevant when considering India’s goal to reduce PM2.5 levels by 2026 to 40% of what it was in 2017. While ambitious and necessary, the target risks falling short if it isn’t mindful of on-ground realities. Consider transportation, for instance. It’s not enough to say “vehicles cause pollution.” We need to ask: what types of vehicles are on the road? What fuel do they use? How old are they? How far do they travel? How bad is traffic? Without this level of detail, it’s difficult to craft realistic, actionable plans for local governments. To turn national goals into real progress, we must connect them to the everyday activities that actually drive emissions.
Proactive programs
While China is often called a success story, it came at a steep price — ₹22 lakh crore over five years for urban centres. India’s NCAP budget is less than 1% of that. However, if we include allied programs like PMUY (₹18,128 crore), the program for Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles in India or Fame II (₹10,795 crore), Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban (₹1.4 lakh crore), and NCAP itself (₹11,542 crore), a broader ecosystem of air quality financing becomes apparent. They target emission sources and deserve recognition as part of India’s clean air strategy.
The NCAP continues to struggle with how its funds are allocated and how progress is measured. It relies heavily on ambient air quality data, which is often affected by weather and geography, making short-term improvements hard to detect. For example, initiatives like PMUY and waste-burning controls have reduced emissions in several areas, but these gains may not reflect in pollution readings, creating a misleading sense of stagnation. Shifting to activity-based metrics — such as the number of stoves replaced or diesel buses retired — would offer a clearer picture of impact and strengthen accountability.
Realigning metrics alone isn’t enough. Local governments also need access to high-resolution, open-source data on emissions-generating activities: where waste is burned, which households use solid fuels, where construction is active, and which roads face the heaviest traffic. Without such data, air pollution remains an abstract issue, disconnected from daily governance. This data gap directly affects how NCAP funds are used. Between 2019 and 2023, only 60% of the funds released were utilised, reflecting not a lack of intent but institutional misalignment. Air quality continues to be treated as a parallel concern rather than a core municipal function.
To shift from intent to impact, India needs a phased, data-driven approach. Phase I: build local emissions profiles to identify the biggest pollution sources; Phase II: link funding directly to targeted actions based on that data; and Phase III: track reductions in emissions, not just pollution concentrations, to measure real progress. This shift from passive monitoring to proactive management mirrors how meaningful change happens on the ground.
Guarding against optics
However, as India adopts more digital tools, it must avoid falling into the “Western trap”— overreliance on high-tech, urban-centric data and solutions without addressing basic pollution sources. Smog towers, real-time apportionment, and AI dashboards may appear innovative but offer little value if burning biomass and the use of old industrial processes and polluting vehicles go unchecked. Cities like London and Los Angeles rolled out advanced sophisticated technologies only after decades of systemic reform. India must sequence its strategies correctly.
This misalignment also risks elite capture. Urban hubs may get cutting-edge tools while rural and informal sectors — responsible for a large share of emissions — are neglected. Worse, these tools may distract from structural reforms, shifting attention to optics over outcomes. More data does not equal more action if local agencies lack authority or the resources to use it.
A key fix is distinguishing between academic research and solution-focused implementation. While long-term innovation is important, policymakers need short-term, scalable models they can act on. India must create separate funding streams: one for research and another for immediate, on-ground interventions. Otherwise, we risk producing more papers than progress.
What are other countries doing?
Global examples offer guidance without imitation. China closed coal plants. Brazil used community-led waste systems. California reinvested pollution revenue in poor communities. London banned coal-use before launching sensors. Each succeeded by following a path grounded in its context. India must do the same— innovate programmes which are federalism-friendly, subsidy-driven, and tailored to its informal economy.
Ultimately, India’s clean air future will be shaped not by dashboards but by people, partnerships, and purpose. We must fix the plumbing before painting the walls. Clean air must be a right for all, not a privilege for a few. Securing that right will take more than promises. It will take coordination, courage, and a commitment to act.
Ajay S. Nagpure is urban systems scientist at the Urban Nexus Lab at Princeton University.
Published – April 02, 2025 08:30 am IST
