Update Air Quality Norms, Parliamentary Panel Tells Govt: Report

New Delhi: On Friday (December 12), a parliamentary panel asked the Union government to come up with an updated National Ambient Air Quality Standards “at the earliest” according to its report tabled in the Lok Sabha, news agency PTI reported.

India notified the National Ambient Air Quality Standards in 2009, in which it revised the safe limits for 12 air pollutants. The first set of standards were announced in the early 1980s, and revised in 1994 and 1997.

Noting that the standards were last revised more than 14 years ago, the report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science and Technology, Environment, Forests and Climate Change also recommended that all manual stations in Delhi-NCR be upgraded to continuous ambient air quality monitoring systems, the PTI report said.

The panel’s report said that the current distribution of air quality monitoring stations in Delhi was “heavily skewed” towards the central and southern parts of the city, which are relatively less populated, greener and more affluent. This geographical bias leads to “a distorted and non-representative dataset”, which systematically excludes more polluted, densely populated and less affluent areas, the report said according to PTI.

Most of the six new continuous monitoring stations proposed for Delhi are also planned in relatively greener areas such as the JNU campus, while the trans-Yamuna region had “again been left out”, the panel’s report said. The panel said that the Union Environment Ministry should reconsider these sites so that monitoring stations are more evenly redistributed across the national capital and the larger National Capital Region.

According to a recent report by the Delhi-based Center for Science and Environment (CSE), air quality monitoring stations are distributed unevenly across an area of 1,483 sq kms, with very few stations in southwest, northwest and peripheral areas of Delhi. This covers only 26% of the city's area within a 2-km radius, leaving a 74% data shadow, the report had noted.

The panel’s report also raised concerns about the high GST on air purifiers and HEPA filters, per the PTI report. The report noted that it was contradictory that while attempts to control air pollution had fallen short, a prohibitive tax is levied on a device citizens use for personal protection, the news report said. 

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