Fighting against POLLUTION to Save Environment

Atmospheric Air Quality

  1. Vehicular Pollution Under Control (PUC) Checks at idling of all vehicles

  2. Ban on commercial vehicles more than 15 years old top operate in metro cities

  3. Phase out of high polluting vehicles

  4. Replacement of all pre-1990 autos and taxis with new vehicles using clean fuels

  5. Removal of eight-year old buses from the roads unless they use compressed natural gas (CNG) or other clean fuel.

Control of Industrial Pollution :
Major cities which have been identified as highly polluted cities are also known to be industrial hubs. Though industries growth in these cities such as Mumbai, Kanpur, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Chennai etc. has shown negative growth, the presence of large industries and unauthorized small scale industries have shown high contribution in the overall air quality of these urban centers. Table 4 presents the list of cities where the Supreme Court has identified these cities for formulation and implementation of action plan for control of air pollution.

Table 4 : Various Cities which were Identified for Implementation of Action Plan for Control of Air Pollution

April – 2002 Order May – 2002 Order August – 2003 Order
Agra Kolkata Ahmedabad
Lucknow Pune Kanpur
Jharia Kanpur Lucknow
Kanpur Ahmedabad Solapur
Varanasi   Bangalore
Faridabad   Chennai
Patna   Hyderabad
Jodhpur   Mumbai
Pune   Kolkata

Following major steps have been taken to reduce the pollution levels caused due to industrial sector :

  1. Closure of polluting industries after due warnings to remedy the situation.

  2. Shifting of polluting industries to less polluted locations.

  3. Declaration of air pollution control areas by state governments.

  4. Use of beneficiated coal (having ash 34%) made mandatory in thermal power plant.

  5. Industrial zoning followed by Industrial Complexing, for pollution prevention and reuse of wastes.

  6. Detailed monitoring of air pollution from 17 categories of highly polluting industrial units to make them comply with stipulated norms.

  7. Use of LDO instead of coal in small boilers.

  8. Revision of emission norms in 1999 for industries

  9. Stipulation of emission standards for new generator sets (up to 19 KW) which run on petrol and kerosene, as many cities use Gen sets during power cuts.

Control of Domestic Sources of Pollution
Intervention in domestic sector has been limited, though introduction of LPG in most of the cities has led to large scale domestic sector emission reduction. As availability of LPG is not adequate, still the urban poor burn kerosene, biomass and also coal. Very poor dwellers also burn refuse of various kinds for their needs. In some cities, where winter is severe, wood and coal burning in open results in large scale pollution particularly in cities like Delhi, Kanpur, Patna etc.

Other major sources of area sources are bakeries and crematoria. Most of the bakeries still use wood. Crematoria for burning of dead bodies use wood for Hindu community also contribute to emissions. Mumbai and Delhi have installed many crematoria which run on electricity to reduce the pollution. Mumbai has been covered well with piped natural gas to about 70% of the population.

Impact of the Steps to Ambient Air Quality
All the interventions discussed above have had positive impact on the overall air quality in many cities. Table 5 presents the levels which have changed between 1993-95 to 200-02. Reductions in air pollution levels have also been achieved for other pollutants as well due to various policy implementation by the Central and State government. Figure 3 presents the changes in air quality witnessed over last 10 years. As is evident from the figure, SO2 values have been declining which could be attributed to low S fuel use. On the other hand NO2 values have shown declining trend till 2004 compared to 1995-96, however recent figures indicate an increasing trend. This could be due to high increase of vehicles on road. Figure 4 presents changes that have occurred in PM 10 concentrations in other major cities of India.