Swachh Vayu Sarvekshan 2023

Swachh Vayu Sarvekshan 2023

News: Recently, the awards for Swachh Vayu Survekshan (Clean Air Survey) conducted by Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) were announced.

What is Swachh Vayu Sarvekshan?
• Swachh Vayu Survekshan (SVS) is a new initiative by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) to rank cities on the basis of air quality and implementation of activities approved under the city action plan (NCAP) in 131 non-attainment cities.
• Cities are declared non- attainment if over a 5-year period they consistently do not meet the NAAQS for PM10 or NO2.
• The categorisation of cities has been based on the 2011 population census.

On which Criteria’s are cities assessed?
The cities were assessed on eight major criterias:
• Control of biomass
• Municipal solid waste burning
• Road dust
• Dust from construction and demolition waste
• Vehicular emissions
• Industrial emissions
• Public awareness
• Improvement in PM10 concentration

Key Findings:
• Top 3 cities under 1st category (million plus population) – Indore, Agra and Thane.
• Worst Performers - Madurai (46), Howrah (45) and Jamshedpur (44)
• Bhopal ranked 5th and Delhi ranked 9th
• Top 3 cities under 2nd category (3-10 lakhs population) - Amravati followed by Moradabad and Guntur and Worst Performers - Jammu (38), Guwahati (37) and Jalandhar (36)
• Top 3 cities under 3rd category (<3 lakhs population): Parwanoo followed by Kala Amb and Angul and Worst Performer - Kohima (39)
• In SVS 2022 edition, the first three spots (million-plus category) were secured by cities in Uttar Pradesh — Lucknow (1), Prayagraj (2) and Varanasi (3). All three cities have been ranked lower this year.

What is NCAP?
• The National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) is a national-level strategy launched by the Union Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change in 2019.
• The main objective of the NCAP is to reduce the levels of air pollution at both the regional and urban scales. The target is for a reduction of 20-30% of PM2.5 and PM10 concentration by 2024.
• The “PRANA” portal has also been launched by MoEFCC for i) Monitoring implementation of NCAP ii) Monitoring the action plans and implementation status of cities and iii) Sharing best practices adopted by cities for others to emulate.

Other government initiatives to tackle Air Pollution:
• Comprehensive Action Plan (CAP): This is a detailed plan notified in 2018 for prevention, control, and mitigation of air pollution in Delhi and NCR.
• Wind Augmentation and purifYing Unit (WAYU): This is a system developed by the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) and the Department of Science and Technology (DST) for air pollution control at urban intersections. The WAYU device uses wind energy to augment the air flow and filters the particulate matter, carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds, etc from the ambient air.
• Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981
• Polluter Pay Principle
• Leapfrogging to BS-VI vehicles standard
• Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research (SAFAR)
• Dashboard for Monitoring Air Quality
• Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) for Delhi