Context
India has made significant progress in monitoring air pollution. There are more than 250 continuous ambient air quality monitoring stations and more than 800 ambient air quality monitoring stations operating across the country. Which shows India's concern for curbing air pollution
Positive Measures
- The budget allocation for air pollution increased substantially in 2020-21 from what it was in 2018-19 to ensure cleaner air in cities having populations above one million.
- The establishment of the Commission for Air Quality Management with penal provisions against polluters in the NCR and adjoining areas is a welcome move.
- India has jumped from BSIV to BSVI vehicles.
- There is an increased focus on e-mobility.
- Through the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana, there has been an effort to reduce indoor air pollution in rural areas by increasing LPG coverage.
Although above measures are helpful but India needs innovations to deliver on the promise of cleaner air in the immediate future.
Possible systems which can be used
- The Indian Agricultural Research Institute’s PUSA Bio Decomposer, which turns crop residue into manure in 15-20 days, could become a cost-effective alternative to tackle stubble burning.
- Advance digital technologies can be used, such as geospatial technology and AI, to upgrade our capacities to identify, monitor, regulate and mitigate air pollution hotspots.
- For instance, the GeoAI platform for brick kilns, developed by UNDP in partnership with the University of Nottingham, is supporting environment regulators to identify non-complaint brick kilns from space.
Need of the hour
- Innovations to address context-specific air pollution challenges.
- There needs to be significant government support for enterprises to come up with scalable pollution abatement technologies.
- Resources need to be allocated to support testing, certifying and scaling of innovative solutions and also to extend support for intellectual property rights protection.
- It is equally important to mobilise private sector participation.
Source: The Hindu
