CSE report reveals grim state of air quality monitoring in India: Only 12 percent cities, towns have required stations

A new analysis by Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) has exposed the sad state of air quality monitoring in the country. According to it, 47 per cent population lives outside the air quality monitoring network and 62 per cent do not have access to daily alerts on local air quality index.

New Delhi: A new analysis by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) released here on Thursday has laid bare the abysmal state of the country’s air quality monitoring network. According to it, of India’s 4,041 census cities and towns, a mere 12 per cent have air quality monitoring systems.

What’s more, only 200 of these cities monitor all six key criteria pollutants. This is when compliance with the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) and clean air targets under the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) requires robust air quality monitoring. The analysis points out that nearly 47 per cent of the country’s population remains outside the maximum radius of the air quality monitoring grid (manual and real time combined), while 62 per cent is outside that of the real-time monitoring network.

"Limited air quality monitoring makes it challenging to identify the non-attainment status of a vast number of towns/cities and regions and also impedes effective evaluation of clean air action and improvement in air quality needed for evaluation of performance of clean air action, especially under the 15th Finance Commission grant. More harmful PM2.5 and ozone are not considered for compliance under NCAP due to limited monitoring and data. It is necessary to ensure more equitable distribution of monitors and adoption of hybrid monitoring with a standardised and certified air sensor network and satellite-based monitoring with appropriate protocols for maximum and cost effective coverage of population to support action,” said Anumita Roychowdhury, executive director, research and advocacy, CSE.

“The current monitoring network also faces the challenge of inadequate data generation, lack of data completeness and poor quality control of monitoring. This makes air quality trend assessment difficult to establish compliance with clean air targets. The current urban monitoring grid is highly concentrated in a few big cities and there are vast areas in other regions with no monitoring. This needs to be rationalised to cover a wider population and habitats to support the implementation of clean air action plans, provide information to public about the daily risks and design emergency response and longer-term action,” said Avikal Somvanshi, senior programme manager, urban lab, CSE.

Key findings of the analysis

The number of manual monitoring stations has doubled since 2010. There were 411 manual stations operating in 2010. According to the CPCB website, currently, there are 883 operating manual stations in 379 cities and towns in 28 states and seven UTs of the country. The CPCB has discontinued its practice of publishing station-wise monitoring data after the NAMP 2020 report; in 2020, the NAMP report had monitoring information from about 711 stations (despite 818 stations listed on record for that year).

The number of real-time monitoring stations has grown 20-fold since 2010. There are 409 real-time CAAQMS stations spread across 209 cities/towns in 27 states and four UTs. Of these, 77 stations were added in 2022. As of February 22, 2023, 23 new stations and 18 new cities have been added to the network, making it 423 stations in 221 cities. It is not always possible to assess actual operating stations. For example, at least four stations have not reported any monitoring data in the last few years. These include Airoli in Navi Mumbai, Bandra in Mumbai, PWD Grounds in Vijaywada and Nishant Ganj in Lucknow.

Only 476 of 4,041 cities/towns have air quality monitoring stations (manual or real time): A majority of these (267 cities) have manual stations; 98 cities have only real time stations; and 111 cities have both manual and real time stations.

Air quality monotoring grid falls short of the recommended guidelines: The monitoring capacity as of January 1, 2023 barely adds up to 6-8 per cent of the minimum recommended as per the guidelines of the Indian Standard 5182 Methods for Measurement of Air Pollution-Part 14. This recommends a minimum number of monitoring stations for cities and towns to be set up as per their population size and type and level of pollutants. The number of stations increases with rise in population, and this is based on factors defined in the standard itself.

As per the 2011 census, India has 4,041 satutory towns. The UN population database for 2020 says there are 63 census towns have more than a million inhabitants. As per the guidelines, these million-plus cities require 959 PM monitors, 643 SO2 monitors, 630 NO2 monitors and 320 monitors for CO and surface ozone each.

Cities with their population in the range of 100,000 and a million need 2,417 PM, 1,863 SO2 and 2,417 NO2 monitors and 525 monitors for CO and surface ozone, each. The requirement for small towns with population less than 100,000 is staggering and adds up to 14,172 PM, 10,629 SO2, and 10,629 NO2 monitors, besides 3,543 monitors for CO and surface ozone, each.

What is available is minuscule in comparison

India has only 1,187 PM10 monitors, 717 PM2.5 monitors, 1,161 SO2 monitors, 1,185 NO2 monitors, 406 CO monitors and 396 surface ozone monitors. A lot more will have to be added if the rural population is also considered.

47 per cent of the population lives outside the 50-km radius coverage of combined manual and real time air quality monitoring network: About 47 per cent of Indian population or about 655 million people lives outside 50 km radius of the air quality monitoring stations (NAMP and CAAQMS combined). Only 4 per cent of the population or about 50 million people lives within the immediate coverage zone of 2 km radius of the monitoring stations; 15 per cent lives in the 2-10 km radius; and about 34 per cent lives in 10-50 km radius.

Only Chandigarh, Delhi and Goa have full population coverage under the combined monitoring network: In Delhi, 26 per cent of the population lives within a 2-km radius of its 40 real time and 10 NAMP monitoring stations; 100 per cent of the population is within the 50-km radius. Chandigarh has the second best coverage with 40 per cent of its population residing within the 2-km radius of its eight manual and real time monitoring stations and 100 per cent within the 50-km radius. Haryana is able to cover 95 per cent of its population within the 50-km radius of its monitoring grid. No other state or UT has over 90 per cent population coverage (within the 50-km radius).

62 per cent of people live outside the 50-km radius coverage of real time air quality monitoring network: About 860 million people live outside the 50-km radius of real time air quality monitoring stations (CAAQMS only) – which means they do not receive the daily AQI-based health alerts. Only 2 per cent of the population lives in the immediate coverage zone (2-km radius) of real time monitoring stations; 11 per cent is within 2-10 km radius, and about 25 per cent within 10-50 km radius.

Less than 200 cities monitor all six criteria pollutants: The group of pollutants covered for NAAQS includes particulate matter less than 10 and 2.5 micron size (PM10 and PM2.5), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), sulphur dioxide (SO2), carbon monoxide (CO), ozone (O3), ammonia (NH3) and lead (Pb). These also qualify for Air Quality Index (AQI) calculations. While PM10, NO2 and SO2 are most widely monitored, the monitoring of PM2.5 is comparatively not as extensive and that of ozone is very limited. Monitoring of ammonia and lead and air toxins like benzene etc is very sparse.