Low on staff, motivation: Regulators fail to enforce air quality standards

The study found staff shortages, increased workloads, poor understanding of the health impacts of pollution, poor coordination with related agencies and low levels of motivation

An acute shortage of technical experts and other staff has reduced central and state pollution regulators to mere advisory bodies, leaving them unable to enforce air quality standards, a recent study has concluded.

The Delhi-based Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and a network of 27 State Pollution Control Boards (SPCBs) are tasked with regulating pollution across sectors. Ten years after India established new National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) that the pollution control boards must enforce, it recorded the worst levels of pollution ever, with the largest number of Indian cities making it onto the global list of the world’s 20