New Delhi, Sep 19: The National Green Tribunal’s (NGT) southern, eastern, and central benches have asked the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and states from the respective regions to submit, by October 10, the status of State Action Plans (SAPs) to combat air pollution.
Upholding the contention that the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) is not just for non-attainment cities, the NGT’s southern bench has asked the CPCB and Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana to submit their comprehensive SAPs by October 10.
The NCAP is a national level strategy launched by the Union Environment, Forests, and Climate Change Ministry in 2019 with a comprehensive mitigation strategies and an effective ambient air quality monitoring network.
Cities are declared non-attainment if they consistently do not meet the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for PM 10 (Particulate matter 10 microns or less in diameter) or NO2 (nitrogen dioxide) over a 5-year period.
The NCAP has identified 132 non-attainment cities across India and several states are working towards city-specific action plans, many of which are already ready. The states are also supposed to prepare the SAPs as part of the NCAP.
Ritwick Dutta of the Legal Initiative for Forests and Environment (LIFE), who represented the petitioners, told IANS, that they had filed petitions at all the benches – southern, eastern, central, western, and the principal bench (for northern region) about two months ago to push for preparation of SAPs as part of the NCAP.
“While the southern bench on September 16 gave October 10 as deadline for states in south India to come up with SAPs, the eastern bench at Kolkata on August 24 had sought responses from the CPCB, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, states of Jharkhand, Bihar, West Bengal, and Odisha as to why their SAPs is not yet prepared? We also had a similar directive from the central bench at Bhopal that sought to know the status for central states,” Dutta told IANS. (IANS)
