National Clean Air Programme (NCAP)

On January 10 2019, the government launched National Clean Air Programme, a time-bound national level strategy to tackle increasing air pollution.

The National Clean Air Programme is a pollution control initiative that was launched by the Ministry of Environment with the intention to cut the concentration of coarse (particulate matter of diameter 10 micrometer or less, or PM10) and fine particles (particulate matter of diameter 2.5 micrometer or less, or PM2.5) by at least 20% in the next five years, with 2017 as the base year for comparison. The NCAP will be a mid-term, five-year action plan with 2019 as the first year.

Following reports by WHO and the air quality data obtained, 102 cities from 23 States and UTs have been chosen as non-attainment cities. With the exception of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Bengaluru, most of those chosen are tier two cities.

Progress of NCAP

• India has one of the most ambitious renewable energy programmes (175 GWs by 2022) in the world and is likely to meet its target in terms of establishing 40% non-fossil fuel based capacity for electricity generation. As of October 2018, India has already established 124 GW1 of renewable power generation capacity (from large & small hydro, solar, nuclear, wind and bio-mass), representing 35.8%; 2 of its total installed electricity generation capacity of 346.05 GW. The share of new renewables which was only 2.15% of total electricity generation in 2005 has risen to 20.8% in 2018.
• India has announced a National Electric Mobility Mission Plan 2020 and is implementing since 2015 a programme for Faster Adoption and Manufacture of Electric vehicles (FAME) which aims at incentivizing/supporting manufacturing ecosystem and early adoption of electric and hybrid vehicles.