Starting this financial year, the government will spend Rs.553 crore across five years to bring down pollution. While only Rs.70 crore is allocated for abatement of pollution in 2016-17, it is anticipated to more than double to Rs.150 crore in 2020-21.

India’s apex pollution watchdog Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) monitors ambient air quality in 74 tier-II cities.

“Analysis of data shows that 41 cities exceed the ambient air quality standard. In addition, these cities are also facing problem of water pollution due to discharges of untreated sewage,” said the Union minister for environment, forests and climate change Prakash Javadekar in Parliament on Tuesday, while replying to a query.

The CPCB estimated the sewage generation from these Class II towns as 2696.7 MLD (million litres per day) but their treatment capacity is not even 10% (only 233.7 MLD) of the total sewage generated, leaving a wide gap of approximately 2463 MLD.

“Also, water quality monitoring indicates that the rivers are polluted in downstream of major urban centers due to large scale water abstraction and discharge of untreated/ partially treated waste water and not meeting the criteria,” Javadekar added.

According to the environment minister, municipal corporations in cities are largely not able to handle the entire sewage generated from the towns with the existing infrastructure.

CPCB along with State Pollution Control Boards (SPCBs) monitors the status of pollution in cities under National Air Quality Monitoring Programme (NAMP) and National Water Quality Monitoring Programme (NWQMP) with a network of 612 stations and 2,500 locations, respectively.

The ministry has identified emission from automobiles, suspended dust, construction activities, industrial emissions and disposal of untreated and partially treated sewage as the main sources of the huge air and water pollution problem.

In the past few years, several studies have highlighted the problem of India’s increasing pollution levels—both air and water. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 13 of the world’s 20 most polluted cities in terms of air pollution are in India.

Though governments have taken some steps to curb pollution in Indian cities, they don’t seem to be enough.

Some of the steps taken to curb pollution include setting up of a monitoring network for assessment of ambient air and water quality, moving directly from BS-IV to BS-VI fuel standards by 1 April 2020, introduction of cleaner fuels like CNG, action plan for sewage management and restoration of water quality in aquatic resources, amendments to various waste management rules, ban on burning leaves, promotion of public transport network such as metros, buses, e-rickshaws and promotion of car-pooling, among others.

The environment minister credits his ministry and state governments for such steps, stating that the level of pollution would have been worse in their absence.

“These steps have contributed in reducing pollution in Indian cities. But for the various steps taken by central government, state governments and Union Territories and other agencies, the level of pollution would have been worse,” Javadekar said.