The alarm bells started ringing within the Centre after the WHO database identified several of India’s top cities with some of the highest levels of air pollution.

New Delhi: In a multi-pronged strategy suggested towards combating air pollution in the country, the Niti Aayog has stressed on an urgent need for switching to electric vehicles and for achieving this, the last mile connectivity needs to be boosted through clean vehicles or e-rickshaws by 2022 and by phasing out of private diesel vehicles by the same period.

Stressing on greater usage of electric vehicles, it has recommended that procurement of electric vehicles should be made mandatory for usage within Central Government and all offices under it should replace existing fleets older than 15 years to electric vehicles in the next three years i.e. by April 2021.

The government think tank has also strongly advocated that Central and state governments should incentivise procurement and utilisation of crop residue. Burning of crop residue by farmers in Delhi’s neighbouring states like Punjab and Haryana, has been one of the major sources of air pollution in the national capital since the past few years. Highly placed sources said that Niti Aayog in a series of measures to deal with the growing menace of air pollution, has said that a survey of power plants around the most polluted cities of the country should be conducted and subsequently their decommissioning should be prioritised.

Concerned over the 2018 survey of the World Health Organisation (WHO) released a couple of months back, which had alarmingly stated that 14 of the world’s 15 most polluted cities are in India, the Centre had commissioned Niti Aayog to come out with an action plan to counter the menace. Subsequently it has prepared a set of directives to tackle air pollution, which are likely to be considered and cleared by the Centre soon, sources pointed out.

Touching upon the lack of space for dumping garbage in cities, especially in the aftermath of landfills reaching their full capacity in various cities (and also the landfill collapse incident in Delhi last year in which two persons had died), the Aayog has recommended that a policy for incentivising waste processing and taxing landfill sites could help in optimising waste management.

Also by mandating compulsory mechanised dust removal in the most polluted cities by 2019, could also go a long way in resolving the pressing issue of air pollution, the Aayog has recommended.

The alarm bells started ringing within the Centre after the WHO database identified several of India’s top cities with some of the highest levels of air pollution. Kanpur, Faridabad, Gaya, Varanasi and Patna are the top five most polluted cities in the world.