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Clean Air Mission for India - Ten Solutions 12

Ten Scalable Solutions for CAM-India

The ten solutions have been chosen based on their Transport and Highways, Ministry of Petroleum and
scalability in the Indian context. The most encouraging Natural Gas, Ministry of Industries, Ministry of Power,
part is that the experts and expertise needed to Ministry of Non-renewable Energy, and Ministry of
implement these solutions are largely available in India. Environment, Forest and Climate Change) to take
Cooperation from international institutions can be targeted actions recommended by the regional
brought when needed. For example, the Governor of scale air quality management plans. Investments for
California, Jerry Brown, met with India’s Prime Minister mitigation actions should be sought through subsidy
Shri Narendra Modi in the fall of 2015 in San Francisco and reallocations, marginal increase in fuel prices, and
has extended the offer of California’s cooperation. These Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities.
developments, along with India’s aggressive pursuit
of air pollution mitigation (see Table 2 above on Major B. Air Quality Management Including Monitoring
Indian Initiatives to Curb Air Pollution), clearly shows that
the time has come to clean the air and achieve standards The air quality monitoring network should be
that can protect people’s health, agriculture, and overall strengthened with improved calibration and
quality of life. validation of data, widened spatial coverage,
and widened pollutant coverage (including PM2.5
Governance and PM10 and ozone precursors such as NOx, CO,
and VOCs). Data at selected urban and remote
1. LaunchinganationalCleanAirMission[CAM-INDIA] sites should contain chemical speciation of PM2.5
for Multi-Scale and Cross-Sectoral Coordination (such as sulphates, nitrates, black carbon, etc.) to
guide policies and assess efficacy of implemented
A. Multi-scale and Cross-Sectoral Coordination polices. A national database of high-resolution
source emission inventories needs to be developed
Considering the enormity of the air pollution with lower uncertainties. Emission inventories are
problem and its trans-boundary nature, a national important tools to drive political actions in different
scale ’Clean Air Mission’ would be a signifcant step sectors. They are also essential for developing trading
for cleaning the air. The targets for the CAM-INDIA schemes and are immensely important for air quality
are particles referred to as PM2.5 to PM10 and Ozone. modelling required for prioritizing actions. The
The per cent contribution of different particle species current and future projections of emission inventories
(like elemental carbon, organic carbon, sulphates, need to be developed in consultation with academic
nitrates etc) to these particles PM2.5 or PM10 differs institutions specializing in air pollution science. Also,
from one location to another, from month to month self-reporting by major industrial sources should be
and at times from one village or city to the next and made mandatory.
even, from one day to the next, implying that the
science of monitoring, determination of emission Air pollution research done at academic institutions
inventories, and modeling is crucial to evaluate and government laboratories needs to be well
the efficacy of policies.Curbing Delhi’s and Uttar coordinated. Meteorological data should be
Pradesh’s PM and ozone pollution requires emission collected and used for understanding the influence
mitigation at regional scales across several sectors. on air quality values. Air quality modelling tools
The critical sectors are power; transport, residential should be used to predict current and future air
energy use, industry, and agriculture. CAM-INDIA quality to enable informed policy decisions. These
should focus on developing regional scale plans should be the basis for assessment of strategies for
for air quality improvement with annual targets. their potential in reducing air pollution. Emergency
CAM-INDIA should look for ways to integrate efforts response plan (ERP) needs to be developed to reduce
across different Indian Ministries (Ministry of Road emissions during episodes and avoid exposure
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