New Delhi Mar 23 PTI With Delhi being adjudged the most polluted capital in the world for the fourth consecutive year in 2021 experts feel that the lack of systematic implementation of plans and policies to fight air pollution in the entire airshed has been keeping the problem aliveAn airshed is the entire area over which the pollutants disperse due to meteorological and geographical factorsDelhi is the worlds most polluted capital for the fourth consecutive year in 2021 with pollution rising almost 15 per cent over the previous year according to the World Air Quality Report released by IQAir a Swiss firm Air pollution levels 964 micrograms per cubic meterin the capital were around 20 times above the WHO-prescribed safe limit of five micrograms per cubic meterThe reason why Delhi hasnt been able to improve its air quality all these years is due to the lack of a systematic and comprehensive policy implementation targeting absolute emission load reduction Sunil Dahiya from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air saidLondon and Beijing were more polluted than Delhi at one time but they improved their air quality with the systematic and coordinated implementation of policies he saidIn Delhi we have a plethora of policies and agencies including the Commission for Air Quality Management and the National Clean Air Programme Several pollution-related cases are in courts and the city government is also making efforts But little has been done keeping the larger airshed in mind Thats the reason the overall emission load primarily due to fossil fuel burning has not reduced Dahiya saidDespite transportation accounting for a large share in the overall emission load in Delhi the government has shied away from capping the number of cars and setting a target to reduce the consumption of diesel and petrolThough the Delhi government has introduced Delhi Electric Vehicles policy which aims at increasing the EV share in total vehicle sales to 25 percent by 2024 vehicles plying in neighboring areas also affect its air quality Dahiya saidAccording to The Energy and Resources Institute Delhi could reduce its PM 25 concentrations by nearly 35 percent by 2030 as compared to the 2019 emissions if efforts are made to manage pollution in the entire national capital region Karthik Ganesan a research fellow at Council on Energy Environment and Water said all industries in the national capital region are yet to switch to PNG barring Delhi and that doesnt solve the problemAlso public transport augmentation in Delhi has not happened speedily The authorities are constructing peripheral expressways but that doesnt take the fossil fuel-driven vehicles far from the city he saidGanesan said if air pollution has reduced in the capital over the years as claimed by the authorities they should tell what factors led to the decreaseAnd we should not be talking about air pollution in winter alone The air is equally bad in summers and nobody talks about the Decision Support System of the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology he saidThough the city government has taken several steps to reduce air pollution like directing fuel stations not to give fuel without a valid pollution-under-control certificate there is no way to know whether the directions are being implemented on the groundAnother problem with Delhi is the multiplicity of agencies which hamper the implementation of plans and policies to curb air pollution Ganesan ruedThe steps to reduce air pollution are all laid out in the city action plan The authorities should now focus on their implementation he addedChandra BhushanPresident and CEO of the International Forum for Environment Sustainability Technology said the problem is that authorities have a very simplistic approach to deal with air pollution in IndiaWe think if we can deal with certain sectors the issue will be resolved It wont For example our focus has been mainly on the transport sector -- we brought in BS VI CNG and now EVs while burning of biomass and coal accounts for around 80 percent of the air pollution in our country he saidThe expert said thermal power plants not being able to implement emission standards has been the biggest failure of the Environment Ministry and the Central Pollution Control Board Till the time we reduce burning of biomass and use of coal There has been no country which has been able to reduce air pollution without reducing the burning of biomass and coal China for example reduced the burning of biomass for cooking which we are also trying he saidChandra Bushan said the biggest step that authorities in India have taken to reduce pollution is proving LPG connection to every household Biomass burning is the one common source responsible for a large percentage of air pollution in the countryAsking people to obtain a valid PUCC is easy as compared to asking people not to burn wood for cooking We will have to makeLPG affordable to be able to dothat he addedDesertification is the second major factor for increased air pollution in Delhi over the last 15 years We will have to restore large parcels of degradedland restore our water bodies and plant trees he saidPTI GVS TDS TDS TDS TDS