(This story originally appeared in on Mar 13, 2018)

NEW DELHI: As part of its dedicated air pollution abatement programme for 100 polluting cities, the Centre has formulated a National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) to fight the menace through a long-term strategy.The programme focuses on target oriented approach with specific time-lines to reduce various pollutants in cities including Mumbai, Kolkata, Pune, Nagpur, Lucknow, Kanpur, Varanasi, Agra and Chandigarh. All these cities will also have their own city-specific action plans, like the one in Delhi, under the NCAP.Under this programme, reported by the TOI last month, the environment ministry targets 35% reduction of air pollution in the next three years and 50% reduction in the next five years for at least the 100 identified cities across India.Concept note of this plan, accessed by Greenpeace India under RTI, talks about tackling pollution from various sources. It identifies power, transport, industry, residential and agriculture sectors as the key contributors making air toxic.The note talks about setting up an effective multi-layered institutional framework to meet the air pollution abatement targets in all the 100 cities under the NCAP. Though the government has already notified a Comprehensive Action Plan (CAP) for Delhi, it will soon formally roll out the national plan for the remaining cities. Long-term strategy within the national plan will, however, also be implemented in the capital city.“The government has formulated a separate NCAP as a long term time-bound national level strategy to tackle the increasing air pollution problem across the country in comprehensive manner”, said Union environment minister Harsh Vardhan . Responding to a Parliament question in Rajya Sabha, the minister in his written response on Monday said, “The overall objective of the NCAP is comprehensive management plan for prevention, control and abatement of air pollution besides augmenting and evolving effective ambient air quality monitoring network across the country”.Though he didn’t disclose the details of the plan, he said, “The NCAP has specific component on formulation of city specific action plans for 100 non-attainment cities”.A non-attainment city is considered to have air quality worse than the National Ambient Air Quality Standards. The list of 100 cities, identified on that basis, also include Guwahati, Vishakhapatnam, Bhilai, Surat, Bhopal, Indore, Amravati, Nashik, Kolhapur, Ludhiana, Allahabad, Jodhpur, Jaipur, Udaipur and Alwar among others.“The concept note on the NCAP is a big step in the right direction to achieve breathable air across the country and we hope that the CPCB and environment ministry along with other ministries and departments come up with a detailed action plan soon and inform the public”, said Sunil Dahiya, senior campaigner at Greenpeace India.Increasing number of monitoring stations, data dissemination, public participation on planning and implementation, setting up of Air Information Center for data analysis and setting up of an updated national emission inventory are key proposals of the NCAP under this note.