E-Paper
Most funding under National Clean Air Programme went into dust management: CSE
The National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) was originally planned to tackle both PM10 and PM2.5 concentrations in the 131 non-attainment cities
New Delhi: Road dust mitigation has been the primary focus of the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP), which was launched in 2019 as the first such effort to set clean air targets for 131 polluted cities and to reduce particulate pollution nationally, with much lower funding for combustion sources that emit pollutants, a Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) assessment released on Friday has found.
As much as 64% of the total funds ( ₹10,566 crore) have gone into road paving, widening, pothole repair, water sprinkling, mechanical sweepers, etc. Only 14.51% of funding has been used for controlling biomass burning, 12.63% for vehicular pollution and a mere 0.61% for industrial pollution control. “The primary focus of the funding is thus road dust mitigation,” the assessment said.
NCAP which was aimed at reducing particulate pollution by up to 40% by 2025-26 from the base year of 2019-20. It was first ever performance-linked funding programme to improve air quality in India.
NCAP was originally planned to tackle both PM10 and PM2.5 concentrations in the 131 non-attainment cities. In practice, only PM10 concentration has been considered for performance assessment. PM2.5, the more harmful fraction and emitted largely from combustion sources, has been neglected, CSE found.
As much as ₹19,711 crore has been earmarked for 131 cities for the period of FY 2019–20 to 2025–26, as per the 2023–24 ministry of environment, forest and climate change (MoEFCC) report. Out of this, about ₹3,172.00 crore has been allocated to 82 cities under the NCAP and about ₹16,539.00 crore to 42 million-plus cities and seven urban agglomerations.
Approximately ₹10,566.47 crore was released to the 131 cities between FY 2019–20 and FY 2023–24 (until 03 May 2024) under both NCAP programme and Fifteenth Finance Commission (XV-FC).
CSE director general Sunita Narain said NCAP’s objectives and aims have always been commendable, but attention and investments under it are largely focused on dust control, and not on emission-spewing combustion sources such as industries or vehicles. “As much as 64% of the funds utilised under NCAP and the 15th Finance Commission have been spent on road dust mitigation. Much less has gone towards controlling emissions from combustion sources—with industrial pollution getting 0.61%, vehicular pollution 12.63%...” she said.
