The Government of India has legislated constitutional provision for protecting and improving the environment. The Indian Penal Code, Factories Act, Wild Life Protection Act, The Mines and Minerals (regulation and development) Act, Atomic Energy Act as well as laws relating to local bodies, corporation etc. contain provision to regulate and take legal action with respect to specific environmental issues. All the enactments include specific provision for environmental regulation and legal action. Over the years, pollution abatement has become an important constituent of national priority in India. These are reflected in policy decision, legislative framework and specific programmes. Important measures related to air pollution include the following:

- Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981;

- Environment (Protection) Act, 1986;

- National Policy Statement on Abatement of Pollution (1992);

- The Environmental Action Programme (1993);

- The Motor Vehicle Act, 1988; and

- The Central Motor Vehicle Rules, 1989.

The Air Act, 1981 provides for prevention, control and abatement of air pollution including noise pollution and to establish Pollution Control Boards at the state level for this purpose. The Act can be applied to a specific area by issuing a gazette notification. Once the area is notified under this Act, no industrial or other pollution causing activity can commence or be carried out without the consent of the concerned State Pollution Control Boards or Pollution Control Committees.

The Environment (Protection) Act is an umbrella Act. It empowers the Central Government to take necessary measures for:

a) Protecting and improving the environment; and

b) For prevention, control and abatement of pollution.

Under this Act, the government is empowered to set standards for environmental quality and limits for emissions/discharges of pollutants from various specified sources. This Act empowers the government to prohibit and/or restrict certain activities, industrial or otherwise in specified areas to ensure protection of environment and it also confers enforcement agency with necessary punitive powers to restrict any activity detrimental to environment.

The Policy Statement on Abatement of Pollution, 1992 states the government’s commitment to prevent further deterioration of the environment. The policy seeks to shift the emphasis from defining the objective for each problem area towards actual implementation with long term focus. To achieve these objectives, it is intended to make maximum use of mix of instrument including legislative and regularisation, fiscal incentive, voluntary agreement, education programme and information campaign.

The Environment Action Programme aims to improve environmental services in India and to facilitate the integration of environmental consideration into development programmes. The programme focuses on priority areas, which include control of industrial and related pollution with accent on reduction and/or management of waste, improving access to clean technology and tackling urban environmental issues.

Laws to control vehicular pollution need periodic revisions of emissions regulations dealing with vehicles and fuel quality. The Central Motor Vehicle Act of 1939 was amended in 1988 to regulate vehicular emission. Although Air Act, 1981 and Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 provide for the prescription of Automobile emission standards by CPCB or Ministry of Environment & Forests, implementation and enforcement of these standards is the responsibility of the Union Ministry of Surface Transport or the Transport Commissioner at the state level.

Abatement Measures

The steps taken by the Central Board to minimise the possible adverse effect on the environment and quality of life include:

- Notification of ambient air quality standards (1982, 1994).

. Improving fuel quality;

. Adoption of green fuels;

. Adopting clean vehicle emission standard;

. Improving abatement and other propulsion techniques; and

Improving traffic management.
 
 
 

ACTION PLAN
ISSUE		ACTION REQUIRED
VEHICULAR POLLUTION
Direct Emission Control Measures
1.	Inspection and Maintenance of Vehicles	Implementation of rigorous inspection and maintenance measures periodically for all types of vehicles, involving vehicle manufacturers.
2.	Improvement in the quality of fuel	Use of catalytic converters to be made compulsory for all vehicles; Improved diesel quality; supply of low sulphur and high octane diesel as automotive fuel; Pre mixed fuel - oil mixture; Retail petrol outlets should supply pre mixed fuel (Petrol + 2T oil); d. Adulteration takes place mainly by the admixture of kerosene with diesel and petrol. Drives to check adulteration at the retail outlets and also by vehicle users are necessary. Advertising campaigns aimed at consumers should be organised.
3.	Use of alternative fuels	Ethanol substitutions; Use of propane; Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas is considering the amendment of the LPG Control Order to allow the use of LPG as an alternative fuel so that LPG/propane can be used in automobiles; c. Use of CNG; Increase use in taxi/cars. Provide more filling stations. Increase  awareness about its use.
4.	Improvement in the design and standards for new vehicles	Strict emission norms for new vehicles so as to encourage manufacturers to hasten technology changes and atleast to distinguish between state-of-the-art and outworn technologies; Development of urban buses design and introduction of buses specially suited to city driving and commuters comfort; c. Others: use of control equipment/fuel injection system;
5.	Enforcement of tail pipe emissions norms	Stricter enforcement of existing legal provisions; Organising free pollution checking camps and operation & maintenance awareness/ demonstration programmes; Audit checks of the functioning of authorised Pollution Checking Centres; Lower time span for fitness of vehicles. Specify engine performance criteria and establish standard practices for fitness testing.
6.	High Polluting Vehicles	Identify high polluting vehicles (especially commercial transport vehicles such as trucks/tempos, etc.) and levy stiff penalties. Prevent entry of such vehicles into the city.
Indirect Measures
1.	Traffic Flow	a. Strict traffic management measures to  reduce congestion and smoothen the flow of traffic; b. Improve traffic speed by ensuring proper repairs/maintenance of roads; c. Ensure better utilisation of existing road  network by cleaning roads and footpaths; d. Provide additional sets of signals at elevated locations to ensure free flow of  traffic.
2.	Staggering office hours	Start of morning office/business hours should be staggered and regulated by proper staggering between 8.00 a.m. to 11.00 a.m. and closure between 05.00 p.m. to 08.00 p.m.; Adjustment of office/business hours to utilise the natural light during different seasons.
3.	Pedestrian Flow	Provide and maintain footpaths, remove hawkers and other encroachments.
4.	Mass Transit	Improve present Mass Transit facilities. Provide additional mode of mass transit that will effectively reduce vehicular emissions.
MONITORING
1.	Air Quality Monitoring	Make daily monitoring data publicly available; Rationalise ambient air quality monitoring locations by reducing and/or relocating some stations to provide increased frequency of monitoring network and to provide better coverage of impacted areas.  c. Optimize sampling station height and identify locations for extended monitoring through rapid surveys. Ensure better coordination among monitoring agencies and optimize resource use through sharing monitoring locations. Monitor additional parameters. Locations to be determined through rapid surveys. Monitoring of PM10 and CO should be carried out. d. Standardize data collection/analysis methods and reporting formats. Provide for better training facilities. Establish  procedures for quality assurance.  Arrange for data sharing and common processing facilities. Introduce quality audit for monitoring/analysis activities.
2.	Meteorological Monitoring	Establish meteorological monitoring stations with automatic recording facility in the city to provide data for air quality monitoring.
3.	Health Monitoring	Strengthen present health monitoring carried out. Improve and standardise maintenance of records in hospitals. Make arrangements to pool and analyse the gathered data. Evaluate indoor air quality by rapid surveys to estimate health damage.
INDUSTRIAL POLLUTION
1.	Reporting Format	Standardise formats for industrial emission data. Standardise industry specific monitoring/analysis methods as per international procedures. Introduce compulsory quality audit.
2.	Emission Factors	Create database of fugitive /process emissions through rapid surveys of targeted industries to establish industry specific emission factors. Change to cleaner fuels.
3.	Stone Crushers	Take punitive action against units that violate environmental laws through better coordination among agencies.
4.	Waste burning	Disallow industrial solid, hazardous wastes burning by roadsides or close to factory premises.
COMMUNITY SOURCES
1.	Refuse burning	Discourage practice of refuse burning on dumps through stricter vigilance. Conduct special surveys to determine magnitude of the problem and to establish emission factors for Indian conditions.
2.	Wood burning	Increase use of electricity in crematoria. All crematoria should be provided with efficient pyres.  Encourage bakeries and other commercial establishments to switch to cleaner fuels.  c. Provide incentives to do the same. The use of high efficiency stoves for wood burning should be encouraged
3.	Dust Resuspension	Establish contribution of road dust resuspension, road repair activity and construction debris in air pollution problem.  Remove accumulated dirt from roadside.  c. Street sweepings, leaves etc. should be  transported along with domestic - solid wastes and should not be burnt on site.  This will improve the combustibility of the solid wastes.
4.	Other fuels	Identify energy demand and consumption pattern for domestic (slum and non-slum) and commercial sectors. b. Making use and sale of cow dung cakes should be discouraged through education and publicity suggesting also alternative use of cow dungs.  c. Sale and use of bituminous coal should be controlled.  d. Steps should be taken to increase the supply of low volatile soft coke at  subsidised rate.
5.	Decongestion	Decongested business areas through entry Levy a toll tax/high parking fees and area licensing. An entry tax should be high enough to discourage use of private vehicles in busy districts.
6.	Emission Inventory	Complete and update emission inventory for SO2, NOx, NH3, TSP, HC, PM10 etc.
7.	Organisation	Designate coordinating agency for Air Quality Monitoring Systems. Such an agency should coordinate the operations of concerned Govt./Semi-govt. agencies; should oversee the action plan’s progress and implementation.

Transboundary Aspects of Air Pollution

Rapid industrialisation with attendant urbanisation and transportation has increased regional concerns with regard to emission of sulphur dioxide and oxides of nitrogen in Asian countries. According to an estimate at the current rate of energy consumption by the year, 2000, sulphur dioxide emissions will surpass the combined emissions of North America and Europe. Several emissions scenario have been developed at the global and regional level including the countries in SACEP region.

According to the projections made by Stockholm Environmental Institute, the emissions in Asia in the year, 2025 will be nearly three times of emissions in 1990 and by the year, 2050, the situation would become even worse. The projections are based on sulphur emission factor linked with fossil fuel and industrial output estimates. Burning fossil fuel and an additional 15% through biomass supply produces more than 80% of the energy in Asia. Coal is expected to be the dominant energy source with the projected demand to increase by 6.5% yearly. If the current rates in economic development and energy used in Asia continue emissions of sulphur dioxide one of the critical component in acid rain will be more than triple within the next thirty years. Many eco-systems will be unable to absorb the increased levels of pollution with harmful effects. The weather patterns in Asia are helpful to transboundary transport of air pollutants from land to sea and reverse in summer. Pollutants can thus be carried from country to country in the region. It is, therefore, not possible for individual countries to solve such problems without regional/sub regional cooperation.

Acid rain is emerging as a major problem especially in parts of Asia and the pacific region where high sulphur containing coal and oil is used. An estimated 34 million tons of sulphur dioxide were emitted in the Asian region during 1990 and it is likely to exceed by 100 million tons by the year, 2020 (Rains - Asia 1997). Acid deposition levels were particularly high in certain areas such as southeast China, northeast India, Thailand and Republic of Korea. Economic growth and dependence on coal as a major fuel is likely to increase acid rain in Asia during the next decade. The emissions will continue to grow unless pollution control technology, e.g. flue gas desulphurisation (FGD) and low sulphur fuels are used.

Acid rain is a product of chemical reactions between airborne pollution (sulphur and nitrogen compounds) and atmosphere, water and oxygen. Once in the atmosphere, these pollutants react with other chemicals to form sulphuric acid and nitric acid. These substances can stay in the atmosphere for several days and travel long distances (hundred to thousand kms.) before falling back to the surface as acid rain. The impacts of these emissions are felt locally, regionally and nationally.

Scientific information and public concern over these issues are developing in Asia and being linked with the policy process. There is a growing need for development of action plans agreement and policies in Asian countries that prevent and control sulphur and nitrogen emissions. Integrated assessment models need to be developed for South Asia, which could provide policy planners with an integrated regional view of the air pollution problem and their potential solutions. These models once developed must allow the information to be combined to investigate the different strategies for the reduction of transboundary air pollution and can be used as tools for negotiations. However, before such an integrated assessment model can be developed and used effectively for the analysis of emission control or prevention it is essential that countries in the region develop necessary scientific and technical capabilities to build up, update and modify the models before such models can be developed, the requirement of the countries in the region need to be assessed along with the component/data requirement as input to the model. Most of the input components required for developing the models might be available in the region while some other need to be established. Uniform approach for data management needs to be adopted. Such models will help the countries in the region to redefine their policies for effectively combating the problem.