About

Non-attainment (NA) cities of India under the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) – launched in January 2019 – are required to achieve 20%–30% reduction in ambient concentrations of particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM1 ) by 2024, since then revised to 40% reduction by 2026. Framing effective air-quality management plans requires an understanding of polluting sources and the emission reduction potential of possible mitigation measures, which requires a comprehensive emission inventory and emissions projection for the city. However, only 37.41% of the NA cities have an emissions inventory – as of July 2024.

An emission inventory (EI) is an effective tool for identifying the sources of pollution and quantitatively expressing the pollution load in a defined area at a particular time. A few global and regional emission inventories are available (GEIA, EDGAR, GAINS). However, these emission inventories are based on gross national values and often do not account for micro-level activity data specific to cities in the Indian region. Information from an emission inventory can assist in defining priorities and aid in planning to reduce pollution from the identified sectors.

The Center for Study of Science, Technology and Policy (CSTEP), with assistance from 12 other Institutes of Repute (IoRs), developed the Emission Inventories (EI) for 76 NA cities under the aegis of the National Knowledge Network (NKN) to understand the various polluting sectors of the city and their share in the pollution.

The study estimated emissions for four pollutants, namely particulate matter (PM10, and PM2.5), Sulphur dioxide (SO2), and Oxides of Nitrogen (NOX), for the following sectors – residential, commercial cooking, open burning, industries (including electricity generation), transportation (tailpipe and resuspension of dust), airports and marine ports. The study findings quantify sectoral emission contribution for the base year 2019-20 and project the sectoral increase in emissions till 2030. The study also quantifies the emissions reduction potential of selected control measures and their associated cost.

The findings of the study can serve as a basis for cities to target emissions from key polluting sources and enable respective state pollution control boards (SPCBs) to prioritise actions (based on cost and emissions reduction potential) in each city’s clean air action plan.

The study's findings are available on this website. City-specific visualizations offer insights into sectoral emissions and their spatial distribution across the larger city area. In addition to highlighting pollution sources, the visualizations also show potential reductions from implementing control measures and identify the most cost-effective options for emission reduction. You can also download the reports from the website.