Sunil Dahiya, Senior Campaigner, Greenpeace India commenting on the National Clean Air Programme said “After much anticipation, MoEFCC has finally uploaded the Concept note on National Clean Air Programme on its website for public comments on Tuesday 17th April 2018. While this is a big achievement for the people who have been at the receiving end of the air pollution issue the absence of absolute pollution reduction targets of 35% in three years and 50% in five years is a cause of concern. We believe MoEFCC will rectify those in the final version of the programme.”
What’s good about the NCAP
- Augmenting Air Quality Monitoring Network
- Inclusion of Air Quality Management Plan for 100 Non-Attainment Cities
- Allocation of specific budget for strengthening air quality monitoring and forecasting mechanism along with other activities under section 7.2 of the Concept Note.
What’s missing in the NCAP
- Absence of pollution reduction targets of 35 % in three years and 50% in five years is grave concern, which was deliberated in MOEFCC as per the file notings and was also communicated by the Minister to the press earlier.
- The NCAP needs to have clear interim milestones for all the activities its proposing like city wise action plans
- NCAP has outsourced all responsibility to States by only focussing on 100 cities. It has ignored polluting sectors like industry and coal thermal power plants which are regulated by the central government. For the NCAP to be effective, it has to take a regional approach and emissions from industry and power sectors have high impact at the regional level and not at a city level. To tackle long ranging pollutants, it will be crucial to have detailed plan on sectors outside city limits .
Notes to Editor
Link to NCAP- http://envfor.nic.in/sites/default/files/NCAP%20with%20annex-ilovepdf-compressed.pdf
Link to NCAP draft accessed by Greenpeace India by RTI- http://www.greenpeace.org/india/Global/india/2018/Concept_note_for_national_clean_air_programme_greenpeace_india.pdf
For further details-
Madhulika Verma, Sr. Media Specialist;
Greenpeace India, 9971137736, [email protected]
Jitendra Kumar, Sr. Media Specialist,
Greenpeace India, 9868167337, [email protected]
Sunil Dahiya, Sr. Campaigner,
Greenpeace India, 9013673250; [email protected]