Innovations for cleaner air

Context: Monitoring air pollution alone isn’t enough; India needs context-specific solutions at the policy and strategy level to tackle the problem.

Government’s efforts for provisioning of clean air:

• Increased budget allocation: to ensure cleaner air for cities with more than one million population.
• Increased monitoring: There are more than 250 continuous ambient air quality monitoring stations and more than 800 ambient air quality monitoring stations.
• Establishment of the Commission for Air Quality Management: with penal provisions against polluters in the National Capital Region and adjoining areas.
• Implementation of Bharat Stage (BS) VI norms: for vehicles and increased focus on e-mobility.
• Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana: reduces indoor air pollution in rural areas by increasing LPG coverage.
• Tackled stubble burning: The Indian Agricultural Research Institute’s PUSA Bio Decomposer, which turns crop residue into manure in 15-20 days.
• United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP’s) efforts:
  • Promoting start-up-led innovations: such as a filter-less retrofit device for cutting particulate matter at source in industries and vehicles.
  • A nature-based solution: to amplify air purification through breathing roots technology for improving indoor air quality.

Way forward:

• Leverage advance digital technologies: such as geospatial technology and Artificial Intelligence, to upgrade our capacities to identify, monitor, regulate and mitigate air pollution hotspots.
  • E.g. The GeoAI platform for brick kilns, developed by UNDP with the University of Nottingham, has mapped over 37,000 brick manufacturing units across the Indo-Gangetic plains.
• Develop context-specific innovations: not only in the technology but also in the economic, social, legal, educational, political and institutional domains.
  • Enabling the ecosystem for innovations to address context-specific air pollution challenges.
  • Develop a single-window online platform: for showcasing innovations with the potential to mitigate the challenges of air pollution.
• Mobilise private sector participation: To develop commercially viable products to combat air pollution, boost the innovation ecosystem and to ensure reduction in institutional carbon footprint.

Conclusion: Diversification of funding sources by quantifying the impact of interventions that reduce air pollution with healthcare cost, disability-adjusted life years, or economic cost will help in ensuring clean air.