Question : Commission on Air Quality Management in NCR and Adjoining Areas

(a) whether any discussions were held by the Commission on Air Quality Management in NCR and Adjoining Areas (CAQM) in concurrence with the appropriate stakeholders to mitigate the impact of pollution and if so, the details thereof along with themeasures discussed and adopted ; and
(b) whether the use of Cloud Seeding as an alternative means to mitigate air pollution was a part of discussion and if so, the details thereof;
(c) whether there are only 804 air quality monitors in the entire country and if so, the details thereof along with the urban- rural distribution of the existing monitors including the details of the current air quality monitor density;
(d) whether the current air quality monitor density is adequate as per World Health Organisation and other international standards; and
(e) whether the Government has taken efforts to expand air quality monitoring, especially in rural areas and if so, the details thereof?

MINISTER FOR ENVIRONMENT, FOREST AND CLIMATE CHANGE
(SHRI BHUPENDER YADAV)

(a) to (e): A Statement is laid on the Table of the House.

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STATEMENT REFERRED TO IN REPLY TO PARAS (a) TO (e) OF THE LOK SABHA STARRED QUESTION NO. 444 DUE FOR REPLY ON 04.04.2022 REGARDING ‘COMMISSION ON AIR QUALITY MANAGEMENT IN NCR AND ADJOINING AREAS’ RAISED BY SHRI PARVESH SAHIB SINGH VERMA & SHRI FEROZE VARUN GANDHI, HON’BLE MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT

(a) & (b)The Commission on Air Quality Management in NCR and Adjoining Areas (CAQM)has adopted a participative & collaborativeapproach towards dealing with the issues of Air pollution in the region. In this direction, pursuant to the Hon''ble Supreme Court Order in W.P. (C) No. 1135/2020 "Aditya Dubey & Anr. V/s Union of Indio &Ors." the Commission invited suggestions from stakeholdersincluding general public for medium and long term solutions for prevention and controlof air pollution in the NCR. A good number of multi-sectoral issues and suggestions relatedto control of Air pollution have been received from different stakeholders & generalpublic. An Expert Committee constituted to examine the suggestions, has been interactingwith stakeholders/experts on a regular basis for adoption of measures for control of airpollution in the region.

In order to further deliberate upon the various factors impacting the air quality in the entire NCR, an ''Interactive Dialogue towards Clean Air'' was organized by the Commission and MoEF&CC in collaboration with other stakeholders of NCR on 7th and 8th March, 2022 at Gurugram, Haryana. Apart from representatives of the CentralGovernment, Government of NCR states / NCT Delhi and Government of Punjab,Members of Parliaments, representatives of the CPCB, State Pollution Control Boards / DPCC, DMs / DCs, and Municipal Corporations / Municipalities of the NCR, IndustryAssociations, NGOs and Academia / Experts attended and actively participated in thedialogue. The topics of discussion included:-
(i) City Specific Action Plans
(ii) Urban Solid Waste Management & Addressing legacy waste of Sanitary Landfill sites
(iii) Management of Dust from Construction and Demolition activities
(iv) Management of Dust from Road sides and Open Areas
(v) Shifting of Industries and Transport to PNG/cleaner fuels- Expanding PNG Networkand Supply
(vi) E-Mobility - Potential solution for addressing Vehicular Pollution
(vii) Ways to reduce emissions from Transport Sector
(viii) Control of Emissions from Diesel Generator Sets
(ix) Sustainable Agriculture Stubble Management includes transforming Waste Biomass into marketable products and Ex-situ Utilisation of Agricultural Stubble incoal basedThermal Power Plants
(x) In-situ management of Agricultural Stubble through bio-decomposers
(xi) Greening and Plantation Programme

Cloud Seeding as an alternative means to mitigate air pollution was not part of the discussion.

(c) & (d) There are 1213ambient air quality monitoring stations operating across the country covering 465 cities in 28 States and 7 Union Territories. Out of these, 880 stations aremanual monitoring stations and covers378 cities/towns. 333 Continuous Ambient Air Quality Monitoring Stations (CAAQMS)measuring real time air quality cover 172 cities/towns in 23 States and 4 Union Territories across the country. The details of current ambient air quality monitoring stations are given as Annexure-I.

26 monitoring stations are located in rural areas.The State and District-wise ambient air quality monitoring stations in the rural areas is given in Annexure-II.

The ambient air quality monitoring stations in the country are established as per the guidelines of CPCB. The siting of air quality monitoring stations are population based and the criteria include available resources and site specific parameters such as size of the area to be covered, variability in pollutants concentration etc. The criteria for designing the ambient air quality monitoring network is given as Annexure-III.

(e) Air Quality Monitoring network of manual as well as continuous monitoring stations is expanded continuously under various programmes with the objective of deploying a sustained and robust monitoring system in the country.

The efforts taken by Government to strengthen air quality monitoring system in the country inter alia include:

(i) 17 stations have been sanctioned for rural areas in 2021-22.
(ii) National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) in 2019 as a national-level strategy to reduce air pollution levels in urban centres;
(iii) Initiation of pilot projects to assess alternate ambient monitoring technologies such as low-cost sensors and satellite-based monitoring;
(iv) Implementation of Air Quality Early Warning System for Delhi, Kanpur and Lucknow. The system provides alerts for taking timely actions;
(v) ? 6705 Crores has been released during 2019-22 to 132 non-attainmentand million plus populationcities for tackling the problem of air pollution by implementation of City specific Action Plans (CAPs). These CAPs also include the establishment of air quality monitoring stations for developing the robust monitoring network.

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