National Clean Air Programme likely to be notified by July end: Env Min

The National Clean Air Programme (NCAP), which proposes multiple strategies to combat air pollution, is likely to be notified by the end of this month, a top environment ministry official said today.

"It (notification of NCAP) should be done soon, say, by the end of this month," Union Environment Secretary C K Mishra told PTI on the sidelines of an event here.

The Environment Ministry has prepared the draft NCAP with an objective to come up with a comprehensive plan for prevention, control and abatement of air pollution, and to augment the air quality monitoring network across the country.

Various green groups have submitted their recommendations to the ministry on the draft.

In February, Union Environment Minister Harsh Vardhan had said that the ministry hoped to bring down air pollution in around 100 non-attainment cities by 50 percent in the next five years under the NCAP.

Non-attainment cities are areas with air quality worse than the National Ambient Air Quality (NAAQ) Standards.

The key components of the NCAP include city-specific air pollution abatement action plan for 100 polluting cities of the country increasing the number of monitoring stations, data dissemination, public participation on planning and implementation.

The other components include setting up of air information centre for data analysis, resource apportionment studies, national inventory and rural monitoring stations, besides guidelines for indoor air pollution.

Last month, Greenpeace India had urged the ministry to speed up the pace of rolling out the programme as a thick haze of dust enveloped Delhi and the pollution levels spiked to an alarming "severe" category.