Halving Delhi’s AQI In 2-3 Years... And Other Soundbytes From 'Aironomics'
After the BJP won power in Delhi, expectation is high that air pollution control will no longer face political or administrative hurdles. A roadmap by experts evolved at a recent AQ conference.
From halving Delhi’s AQI in a couple of years to a reality check of foreigners wanting to give the neighbourhood a miss. Optimism with a sense of urgency is the usual sentiment at air pollution conferences. However, Aironomics 2025, a conference held in May, went a step further, as it brought to the forefront heavyweights not usually seen at such air quality gatherings.
Organised by Dalberg, a consulting firm, and representatives of the ruling establishment, the gathering was notable for bringing together elected leaders and bureaucrats along with scientists, health experts, and business and financial leaders.
One reason for the optimism is the new political reality that after the BJP, which won power in Delhi recently after 27 years, now has governments in almost all the states in the northern plains. This is one of the world’s most polluted regions. While air pollution is a bipartisan issue, political rivalry and a lack of coordination between various governments, vital for tackling transboundary air pollution, have often led to a blame game and stalemate.
To get a quick sense of the key takeaways by some of the domain experts, below are their video clips. These excerpts suggest a framework needed to rapidly cut air pollution, which is a complex but solvable public health crisis.
Perhaps the most crucial inputs came from the officials for the CAQM, a five-year-old agency responsible for cutting pollution in the Delhi region; for the last few years, Delhi’s average annual PM 2.5 level has averaged around 100 micrograms per cubic metre, which is 20 times the WHO’s safe guideline.
Delhi’s AQI can be halved in 2-3 years: IIT scientist
Delhi’s air quality index (AQI) during peak pollution months can be halved in just two to three years by addressing two key sources within the city itself, according to Dr SN Tripathi of IIT Kanpur, one of India’s leading air quality scientists within the government ecosystem. Using Delhi as a case study due to its high visibility and pollution levels, he emphasised that significant improvement is possible through focused local action.
“If you cut down local combustion sources in Delhi, you can cut AQI by half. That’s how much local pollution sources contribute to Delhi’s air pollution in winter. Solid fuels at home and roadside burning easily contribute around 30% of the overall pollution.”
Listen in (you may need to click a couple of times for it to play):
Dr Tripathi is Dean, Kotak School of Sustainability, Project Director, AI CoE-Sustainable Cities, IIT Kanpur.
Expand the ‘wonderful’ Ujjwala, better-off can fund subsidies: Dr Swaminathan
A favourite of many air quality experts is the government’s Ujjwala scheme, which was launched nine years ago to provide free or subsidised cooking gas in cylinders to India’s poorest households. The government recently put the number of beneficiaries at over 100 million, though, how often are they able to get refilled cylinders is a concern. Recent government data shows that a little over 80 million beneficiaries “availed at least one refill” between April 2022 and March 2024. The recurring cost is borne by beneficiaries. That can be a hurdle for poor households, especially when biomass is free or at a fraction of the cost of an LPG cylinder.
While the Ujjwala scheme is widely welcomed by health and other experts, many want it expanded for sustained and wider benefits.
Indoor air pollution caused largely by burning biomass for cooking and heating in winter is linked to some 480,000 deaths annually. Switching to cleaner cooking fuels can save hundreds of thousands of premature deaths.
Dr Swaminathan, the former WHO chief scientist, has not only called for the expansion of the scheme but also for funds that may be raised by charging more from higher-income groups who can pay more. This, she says, can help the bottom 20-30%.
“One low-hanging fruit is to build on the government’s wonderful and accessible to the poorest households by subsidising the cost of the cylinders for targeted subsidies. When the Prime Minister launched this many years ago, he had asked people who could afford to give up their subsidy to do so, and a lot of Indians had given up their subsidy.”
She pointed out that in North India, nearly 60% of air pollution in winter comes from indoor biomass burning.
Listen in:
Dr Soumya Swaminathan is currently co-chair of a new global group, Our Common Air.
Foreigners put off by air pollution: India’s top banker
Air pollution is prompting foreign tourists and expatriates to rethink their plans to visit India and especially Delhi or Gurgaon, points out Ashwini Tewari, Managing Director of India’s largest bank, the government-run State Bank of India.
Tewari says that there’s a critical need to control air pollution, not just for health, but for other sectors as well. For example, many tourists skip parts of the country in winter, especially because they think the pollution is too high. Expats talk about not bringing their families to Gurgaon or Delhi because of air pollution, he says.
Listen in:
While Tewari says that banks don’t have a direct role in monitoring and managing air pollution, they do finance clean energy projects, and the SBI’s renewable energy portfolio is currently around ₹77,000 crore.
Making officials accountable: Pollution control agency
Officials of the Commission for Air Quality Management say the agency’s work has “flattened the curve.” Set up in 2020, it has the authority to impose fines, stop thermal power plants, order polluting vehicles off the road, among other things.
“Of course, you can start new institutions — but ultimately, delivering results on the ground will require reform within existing institutions. That reform starts with better communication of air quality data and health impacts, especially to the most vulnerable communities,” says Dr Virinder Sharma of the agency.
As one measure of success, CAQM officials point out how the number of stubble fires of paddy harvest, especially in Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, a large cause of winter pollution in the north, has fallen. [Though there are reports that the falling numbers are a result of evading satellite monitoring, an issue that was raised in the Supreme Court as well.]
Arvind Nautiyal, Member Secretary of the CAQM, says they have taken a few good initial steps and that they’re on the right track with a focus on issuing directions and advisories.
Listen in:
Dr Sharma, who is Member Technical at the agency, says fixing accountability and imposing penalties will show results. Some of the data he presented shows that over 60 officers have been suspended in Punjab and Haryana, and there have been police cases in over 6,000 incidents of stubble burning. Listen in:
Role of business, industry key to cut air pollution: UN official
The UN’s top representative to India, Shombi Sharp, added another perspective the solving the crisis by calling on the private sector to change core business practices by making them sustainable.
Sharp, UN Resident Coordinator, India, says he’s proud to call Delhi his adopted home and loves it in every respect except the air quality - he had the “misfortune” of arriving in November 2021.
Describing the scenes of smog as apocalyptic, Sharp echoed other speakers, saying the economic benefits of policies to reduce air pollution in the region exceed the costs and the return on investment “is really, truly huge.”
He says businesses and industry will be the difference makers, thanks to their sheer scale, if they integrate sustainability in their core business practices and pollution reduction with profit making. “It’s absolutely doable.”
Listen in: