Air Pollution Management for National Clean Air Programme

• Policy brief on Heavy Commercial Vehicles – The Heavy Commercial Vehicles (HCV) report highlights that a small subset of poorly maintained and overloaded vehicles act as super-emitters, releasing up to eleven times more pollutants than compliant vehicles. Cost-effective strategies like accelerated fleet renewal, stricter inspection and maintenance, and adoption of cleaner technologies (e.g., BS-VI, LNG, and electric freight solutions) could reduce HCV emissions by 60–70% in the coming decade. Scrappage remains the single most cost-effective strategy to reduce emissions from transportation sector.
• Policy brief on Diesel Generator Sets – The Diesel Generator (DG) sets report shows that DGs remain a major hyperlocal pollution source, with 14.7 lakh units nationwide (2022) emitting 42 Gg of PM2.5, 23 Gg of black carbon, and 877 Gg of NOX annually. Older or poorly maintained DG sets were identified as super-emitters, especially concentrated in high-demand districts such as Patna, Noida, Mumbai, and Bengaluru. Alternatives such as solar PV with storage (payback period of 3-8.5 years), advanced CPCB IV+ DG sets (~8.5 years), and natural gas generators (~14 years) are feasible but face barriers of cost, infrastructure, and scalability.

Together, the reports underscore that both HCVs and DG sets are disproportionately large contributors to India’s urban air pollution and that targeting super-emitters, scaling clean alternatives, and enabling supportive policy frameworks could deliver significant near-term emission reductions.

• Capacity building workshops for state governments and other outreach: We conducted ICAS 2024 and 2025 which included participation from state government, funders, academia, and think tanks. We have conducted capacity building workshops in Assam, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab and Karnataka.
• Reginal air quality modelling for South India using chemical transport models.

This project will be extended to 2026 and beyond. It will include capacity building, development of a governance framework and  establishing climate co-benefits of air quality mitigation strategies.

Figure 4: Capacity building workshops in Dewas, IIFM Bhopal, Punjab (3 cities), Karnataka (3 cities)