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- The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change has constituted a committee to implement the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP).
- The committee will be chaired by the Secretary, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. The other members would include a) Joint Secretary (Thermal), Ministry of Power; b) Director-General, The Energy Resources Institute (TERI), a Delhi-based think-tank; and c) Professor Sachidananda Tripathi, Indian Institute of Technology-Kanpur (IIT-K).
- The major functions of the committee would be a) inter-ministerial organisation and cooperation, b) sharing information and resolving issues that could arise between ministries, c) give overall guidance and directions to effectively implement the programmes.
- In 2019, National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) has been launched for prevention, control and abatement of air pollution in India. It is a five-year action plan with 2019 as the first year.
- It aims at 20%–30% reduction of PM2.5and PM10 concentration by 2024, taking 2017 as the base year for the comparison of concentration.
- The programme targets 102 non-attainment cities which were identified by Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) on the basis of their ambient air quality data between 2011 and 2015.
- Non-attainment cities are those which have been consistently showing poorer air quality than the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS). Example: Delhi, Varanasi, Bhopal, Noida etc. NAAQS are the standards for ambient air quality set by CPCB. Ambient air quality refers to the condition or quality of outdoor air.
- The NCAP requires cities to implement specific measures; however; it doesn’t specify an exact date for when these obligations would start. Thus, the programme have been criticised by experts on the grounds that it lacks mandatory targets and proper enforcement mechanisms.
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