Representational photo.

NEW DELHI: Critical issue of air pollution has finally entered political discourse in India with the country’s two major national parties - BJP and Congress - giving it some space in their respective election manifestos ahead of the upcoming parliamentary polls.

Both the parties even promised to look beyond Delhi - the capital city which invariably draws maximum attention on the issue - through strengthening the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP).

Six days after the Congress Party recognising air pollution as a “national public health emergency” and promised to work urgently to deal with the menace, the BJP on Monday pledged to convert the existing NCAP into a ‘Mission’ and focus on all 102 most polluted cities in the country.

The ruling party in its election manifesto promised to reduce the level of pollution in each of these 102 cities by at least 35% over the next five years and completely eliminate crop residue burning (a major source of air pollution in Delhi and the national capital region) by 2022.

The BJP, in fact, set these targets on reducing air pollution as two its 75 promises made under the ‘milestones for India at 75' (75th year of independence in 2022) plan.

Currently, the NCAP aims to reduce level of pollution by 20-30% in next five years (till 2024) taking 2017 as base year.

The 102 cities which the party spoke about are the non-attainment cities which currently do not meet the National Ambient Air Quality Standards.

The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) had identified these 102 cities, using air quality data from the years 2011-15 and inputs from WHO report (2014-18). These cities found place in the NCAP which was launched in January.

The list of 102 cities consists of all major cities including Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur, Varanasi, Kanpur, Lucknow, Allahabad, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Vishakhapatnam, Guwahati, Chandigarh, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Jammu, Patiala, Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Patna and Hyderabad among others.

Earlier, the main opposition, Congress Party, had on April 2 promised to strengthen the existing NCAP in order to “urgently tackle” the problem and pledged to constitute an overarching authority to “establish, monitor and enforce environmental standards and regulations” in the country.

“All major sources of emission will be targeted, mitigated and reduced to acceptable levels. Sectoral emission standards will be set,”said the Party in its manifesto while referring to the issue of air pollution.

On setting up an independent and overarching central body - called the Environment Protection Authority (EPA) - for enforcing green laws, the Congress said, “The EPA will replace all other bodies that currently exercise jurisdiction and powers."

On overall environment and climate change issues, the Congress had even promised to adopt core principles of “Green Budgeting” in annual budget and pledged to make India a “green manufacturing hub."

