62% cut in PM2.5 needed to meet national standards
Delhi requires another 62% cut in PM2.5 levels to meet the national clean air standards, reveals a new report by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) released on Thursday. The air quality trend since 2018, when most of the monitoring stations were set up, shows that the average annual PM2.5 levels (based on 38 stations) show a 10% increase since 2018 overall. However, after the pandemic year of 2020–21, the levels increased, stayed elevated, and the curve turned upward in 2023–24. "The maximum values in 2024 were the highest in the past few years. Delhi requires as much as a 62% reduction in its annual PM2.5 average level to meet the national ambient air quality standard," the report says. Anumita Roychowdhury, CSE's executive director, said: "What is needed here is more aggressive upscaling of mobility strategies, zero-emission vehicle transition, robust waste management, action on unregulated industry and the use of solid fuels in households, and regional airshed level interventions." The report highlighted that though Delhi has a large number of air quality monitoring stations, these are not well distributed to cover the population in all land uses, and there are still some "shadow zones" with low station density. "Currently, the monitoring stations in Delhi are mainly centred in and around the southern and central parts of Delhi. The southwest and northwest peripheries have minimal monitoring stations, leading to gaps in air quality monitoring. The stretch between Mundka, Bawana and Narela should have more monitoring stations as these are the areas that record some of the highest PM2.5 levels," the report said. CSE, which analysed the data of the Decision Support System (DSS), which is the dynamic forecasting of IITM, identified the top concerns among local sources as vehicles, industries in Delhi and its periphery, construction, waste burning and residential fuel. "Post crop burning season, the share of crop fire is less than 1%, the share of NCR and other districts is 64%, and the contribution of local pollution sources in Delhi increases further to 36.54%. At 30%, the contribution of local sources is significant, especially when it is considered that the city needs to reduce PM2.5 levels by 62% from a very high annual level of 105 micrograms per cubic metre," the report said. CSE said that between 2019–20 and 2024–25 financial years, Delhi received Rs 42.69 crore under the NCAP programme of the ministry of environment, forests and climate change (MoEFCC), out of which Rs 13.94 crore or 32.64% was spent.
