CSE releases nation-wide review of good practices in clean air action

National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) under spotlight – has helped create a pan-India air quality management framework, but must play a stronger and more decisive catalytic role  

• CSE’s review focuses on selected case studies from across India that showcase emerging good practices in clean air action in four different sectors: vehicles, industries, solid waste and construction and demolition (C&D) waste
• NCAP’s larger focus has been on dust control – but it has still created opportunities to align with other sectoral funding and programmes to develop a convergence framework for reporting progress in cities
• NCAP must play a stronger catalytic role in aligning the sectoral action, while its own funding and programmatic support must upscale implementation of priority solutions in key sectors
• No city has taken all actions in a composite manner or at a requisite scale – but many have demonstrated progressive steps with strong potential to cut emissions. This provides an important learning curve for all.
• To address the air pollution and health crisis, NCAP has to adopt a good practice model to upscale energy transition in industry, transport and households, shift to clean and zero emissions mobility, andclose the waste loop  

Download the CSE review report and access the national conference proceedings click here 

New Delhi, May 29, 2025: India’s National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) has completed five years. A new nation-wide review of the Programme by Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) has shown that it has notched up hits as well as misses. The review report – titled Driving Clean Air Action under NCAP – was released here today at a national conference. 

The CSE review focuses on selected case studies from across India that showcase emerging good practices in clean air action in four different sectors: vehicles, industries, solid waste and construction and demolition (C&D) waste. But it also lays bare some of the systemic drawbacks that have kept the Programme from reaching its full potential. The urban centres which the review has covered include Delhi, Kolkata, Noida, Surat, Kochi, Indore, Srinagar and Bengaluru, among others. 

Speaking at the conference, CSE director general SunitaNarain said: “Clean air action needs to be taken sector by sector and within a sector we need game changers. Incremental action will not solve the pollution problem. We need transformational measures.” 

Releasing the study report, CSE’s executive director AnumitaRoychowdhury said:“Our review shows that while NCAP has helped establishthe national air quality management framework with clean air targets, identified the non-attainment cities and adopted the first-ever performance-linked funding strategy, its interventions have been largely confined to road dust control, especially in the Indo-Gangetic Plains. Funding that is available under the Programme is not equitably spread across priority measures in the combustion sectors.” 

Roychowdhury emphasises: “This review is not a report card on what all cities have done and how they have progressed under NCAP. This is simply an assessment of some – not all -- of the good practices to cut toxic emissions that are being initiated and followed in a few cities across the country.” 

The criteria for selection of the case studies, say CSE researchers,has considered alignment with national policies, guidelines, regulations and standards, service-level benchmarks, targets and mandates. It has also recognised innovation in approaches, technology adoption, institutional reforms, fiscal strategy, process changes and system development. 

Says Shambhavi Shukla, programme manager, clean air and sustainable mobility, CSE: “Good practices have been presented with the caveat that these are work in progress and in the right direction, but they still have gaps and need further strengthening.” 

Good practices: What’s happening in the cities

The review shows how several cities and regions are beginning to integrate system design, infrastructure development, technology upgrades and monitoring and compliance strategies to implement a portfolio of solutions. “This is an important learning curve for all cities and regions for driving change,” says Roychowdhury. 

DELHI – despite the continuous challenge of air pollution that it faces --leads the selected cities in terms of actions initiated. Says Roychowdhury: “The city has demonstrated the importance of regulatory mandate and targets in achieving upscaled implementation of multi-sector solutions to bend the pollution curve.”

Delhi’s clean air action precedes the NCAP programme. Its early action was driven by interventions from the Supreme Court and its monitoring body,the EPCA: the city substituted diesel fuel with CNG in its public transport and local commercial transport; put restrictions on entry of trucks and imposed a pollution tax on daily truck entries, diesel fuel sold, and diesel cars sold with 2000-cc engines; phased out 10-year-old diesel and 15-year-old petrol vehicles; banned polluting industrial fuels like coal, furnace oil and pet coke; and closed all coal-based power plants. 

After 2020, the CAQM has restricted the entry of pre-Bharat Stage IV inter-state buses; banned diesel generator sets; and initiated hotspot action on dispersed sources. The Delhi government’s electric vehicle policy has attained fleet electrification level of 12 per cent. The long-term action on coal and diesel has cumulatively led to major reductions in their consumption and led to emission reduction. 

The cityhas demonstrated a system approach in its management of C&D waste. Its waste collection process is streamlined, with geo-tagged collection depots, colour-coded skip-hauler bins and smartphone apps that show residents nearest drop-off points. Delhi has the highest recycling capacity in the country: 5,150 tonne per day. The government has also mandated all public agencies to use recycled aggregates. 

Even after such extensive action, Delhi still requires another 60 per cent cut in PM2.5 levels to meet the national clean air standards. Says Roychowdhury: “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.” 

VARANASI offers another interesting case – dust accounts for 84 per cent of the particulate pollution in the city. While NCAP has played a catalytic role in formalising the comprehensive air quality management programme in Varanasi, it could benefit from the urban redevelopment and renewal of the core city area and the riverbank re-development to reduce air pollution and dust levels. Roychowdhury says that “dust control is a much bigger agenda requiring – as Varanasi has demonstrated – an eco-system approach through urban redevelopment and greening.” 

On vehicular emissions

The CSE review notes that most cities are struggling to control vehicular emissions -- a few cities have adopted a more integrated and cohesive approach,while some have shown strategy-specific progress. KOCHI, in Kerala, is working towards a multi-modal transportation system around its metro rail and is cleaning up its energy systems to run its transport on renewable solar energy.SRINAGARhas leveraged its Smart City programme funding to upgrade and upscale its transport and mobility systems – it has developed city-wide pedestrian infrastructure, regenerated public spaces, restored the Jhelum river front and initiated electric boat services, among other things. BHUBANESWARis a unique example among the emerging metropolitan cities that demonstrates how a city can develop a new bus system from a poor baseline and transform it significantly. BENGALURUshows how a legacy operator can modernise its bus systems from within and evolve with the times. SURATdemonstrates how investment in advanced information technology for bus operations can be leveraged to improve service level and ridership. 

In CHENNAI, walking and cycling infrastructure has been accorded due importance, and the city has introduced a Non-Motorised Transport (NMT) Policy.KOLKATAis the only city to have implemented remote sensing measurements for on-road emissions monitoring. There are barely any instances of vehicle restraint measures – the review notes that the land-constrained hill regions of Shimla, Gangtok and Mizoram have implemented a Proof of Parking Policy, while Delhi is the only big city to have notified the Parking and Maintenance Rules. 

Refer to the report for a detailed assessment of selected cities. 

On industrial emissions

The review finds that it has been very challenging to address industrial air pollution under NCAP, as most industrial areas are located outside the municipal boundaries of cities. The review has examined case studies on key technology approaches such as common boiler technology, clean furnaces for the foundry sector, brick kilns, and fugitive emissions in stone crushers. NCAP can enable upscaling of the adoption of the cleaner furnace technologies and switch to clean fuels. In India, GUJARAThas taken the lead in implementation of a common boiler policy, while ODISHA has invested in Continuous Emission Monitoring Systems (CEMS) and leveraged CEMS data for strengthening monitoring and inspection. 

Refer to the report for a detailed assessment of selected technologies, cities and regions. 

On municipal solid waste and C&D waste management

In the municipal solid waste sector, cities have begun to take more ecosystem approach to achieve zero landfill status. INDORE has closed its entire waste and material loop, while PUNEhas demonstrated an equitable model that integrates informal workforce with the service delivery. BHOPALis seen to be consolidating its gains won through rigorous source-segregation by-laws, while AMBIKAPUR’s Solid and Liquid Resource Management (SLRM) centres have shown the way to a systemic framework for managing waste. 

In C&D waste management, HYDERABAD has adopted a unique model of decentralised management, with four plants under public-private partnership model fencing the urban agglomeration.NOIDA demonstrates that a recycling plant itself can be a dust-free industrial site – the plant in the NCR city manages to cut fugitive PM by more than 90 per cent. In PIMPRI-CHINCHWAD, a third-party agency manages the C&D waste collection, monitoring and compliance enforcement system. 

Refer to the report for a detailed assessment of selected cities. 

What more can be done?

Roychowdhury says: “Air pollution is a public health crisis in India and requires urgent upscaling of action to meet the clean air benchmark across all regions. The air quality management framework has to catalyse sectoral action and create conditions, opportunities and mandate for scalability.” 

Despite the larger focus on dust control, NCAP has created opportunity for cities to align the progress under different sectoral schemes and funding with respective targets and mandate, to report progress in clean air action. Therefore, progress in clean air action combines the action taken under parallel sectoral programmes of Swachh Bharat Mission, Smart City Mission, thenational demand incentive programme for electric vehicles, among others. This convergence framework is driving change in transport, industry and waste management. 

Adds Roychowdhury: “The good thing is that despite the challenges, the review of emerging good practices builds optimism and hope about the direction of change. Cities and regions are beginning to integrate the key elements, the essential systemic design, infrastructure, monitoring and compliance systems to implement portfolio of solutions needed to make a difference. Several forces are coming together – national level regulation and performance linked funding, state level policy innovation, judicial intervention and proactive participation of the industry an community action to catalyse change on ground. The NCAP needs to be more strategic to leverage and drive this change.” 

The CSE review suggests the following roadmap for doing that:

• NCAP needs to build stronger synergy with all sectoral programmes to mainstream clean air objectives and indicators in all key sectors of pollution – transport, industry, waste and households. The clean air fund needs to be well distributed across sectors to promote good practices
• NCAP needs to adopt a good practice model to upscale action and provide guidance framework. This NCAP needs to set sectoral targets while defining the system and design improvements for implementation.
• Shift the benchmark for assessing clean air performance from PM10 to PM2.5 and set city and state level clean air targets to address the larger airshed and for upscaling of action. Also set sectoral targets to plan for the scale of change.
• NCAP funding needs to be catalytic to upscale priority good practices in key sectors.
• NCAP needs to unlock more resources at the national and state level by leveraging other funding strategies to deliver on clean air objectives.
• NCAP funding needs to become reform based and conditional to upscale good practices.
• Upscaling good practices require legal back up and technical capacity. 

For more details, interviews etc, please contact Souparno Banerjee, souparno@cseindia.org, 9910864339.