- Water (Prevention & Control of Pollution) Act, 1974;

- Water (Prevention & Control of Pollution) Cess Act, 1977;

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

- Environment (Protection) Act, 1986; and

- Public Liability Insurance Act, 1991.

These Acts prescribe the Environment & Forests Agency as a nodal regulatory agency at the Central level. It is in charge of the policy formulation, planning and co-ordination of all issues and programme related to environment. The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) is the law enforcing body at the Central level in the Ministry of Environment & Forests. It has the role of coordinating the activities of State Boards, establishing environmental standards and executing a nation wide programme for prevention, control and abatement of pollution. The State Pollution Control Board under the administrative control of State Department of Environment enforces environmental legislations at the state level. The main function of CPCB as spelt out under the Air Act, 1981 is to improve the quality of air and to prevent control or abate air pollution in the country. The functions of the CPCB at the national level are:

                   - Provide technical assistance and guidance to the State Boards, carry out and sponsor investigations and research relating to problems of air pollution           and  prevention, control of abatement of air pollution;

                  - Establish Air Quality Standards.

In order to meet its obligations as envisaged in the Air Act, 1981, CPCB has

established a programme for monitoring of ambient air quality besides conducting emission inventory and laying down action plan for abatement and control of pollution. The organisational structure of the CPCB is given in Fig - 1. The structure categorises the various activities of CPCB under three different heads, i.e. Pollution Assessment, Pollution Control and Infrastructure.

As the air pollution abatement/mitigation involves actions from different institutions, it is desirable that a single co-ordinary institution with a clear mandate and sufficient resources must be responsible for air quality management. In India, as the Central Pollution Control Board being the main law enforcing body and involving the responsibility of planning and arranging to execute a nation wide programme for the prevention, control or abatement of air pollution, can be designated as the co-ordinating institute, where a separate cell can be created for implementation of action plan

The three major components of the action plan are Monitoring, Assessment and Action form part of the present organisational set up of CPCB. The implementation of the key components of Action Plan can be co-ordinated by CPCB. CPCB in association with Ministry of Environment & Forests will interact with Ministries of Petroleum & Natural Gas, Industry, Coal, Health and Surface Transport and other Central Government departments for laying down standards for better fuel quality, clean vehicle emission standards, adoption of cleaner production technology etc. The implementation of the action plan will also need co-ordination with State Pollution Control Boards/Pollution Control Committees, Research Organisation, Universities, State Transport Department etc. The flow chart is presented in Fig. 2.

The institutional mechanism for implementation of action plan needs to be strengthened through training and re-orientation programme. Some of the areas are:

- Development of emission factors;

- Preparation of emission inventories;

• Conducting Health Impact Studies
• Use of Models for predicting air quality, population exposure distribution;
• Development of methodology for Rapid Assessment of Air Pollution & Health.

 Budget

The implementation of Action Plan, covering the three key components of Monitoring, Assessment and Action would require substantial financial commitment, which may not be available from internal resources. Implementation of the Action Plan even in few cities/town would also require large financial commitment, which may not be possible without assistance from donor agencies. Considering the high cost, involved, phase wise implementation of the Action Plan in the entire country is proposed. To begin with few major cities/towns can be included in the programme (Phase-I). Activity wise financial assistance, required is given in Table - 6. The total funding required for phase-I implementation is Rs. 892.40 million equivalent to 20.75 million US Dollar.