17 Yrs On, Air Quality Norms In For Revision

New Delhi: A long-awaited revision of India's National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) could be out soon after IIT Kanpur submitted its final technical report on revised standards to Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) last Dec, almost a year late. The standards will be revised nearly 17 years after the last update in 2009.According to an official reply under Right to Information Act dated Feb 6, filed by environmental activist Amit Gupta, National Air Quality Standards Project, commissioned by CPCB, ran from Dec 21, 2021, to Nov 30, 2024, and Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur was tasked with preparing a detailed technical assessment to support a possible update of the country's air quality framework.
The first draft was submitted by the institute on Oct 6, 2023, but the final report was delivered on Dec 16, 2025, almost a year after the project contract expired. CPCB funded the work with Rs 19.5 lakh, all of which was spent, the RTI response showed.The 2009 NAAQS had set limits for key pollutants such as fine particulate matter 2.5 far above contemporary public health benchmarks. For example, the 24-hour average PM2.5 limit is set at 60ug/m3 (micrograms per cubic metres) and the annual standard at 40ug/m3, levels many experts say are insufficient to protect health when compared with the updated World Health Organization guidelines. According to WHO, the limits are 15ug/m3 for 24 hours and 5ug/m3 annually.For PM10, the NAAQS standards are 60ug/m3 annually and 100µg/m3 for the 24-hour average against WHO's 15ug/m3 annually and 45ug/m3 for the 24-hour average. For nitrogen dioxide, the national standards are set at 40ug/m3 annually and 80ug/m3 for 24 hours against WHO's annual limit of 10 and 24-hour limit of 25. The national standards are slightly tighter for sensitive areas for the annual average."Scientific evidence shows that there is no safe threshold for PM2.5 exposure as health risks persist even at very low concentrations. Therefore, progressively strengthening India's NAAQS in alignment with the WHO interim targets can deliver substantial public health benefits," said Manoj Kumar of Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air. "Although revision of NAAQS was identified as a key action under National Clean Air Programme, it remains pending even after the second extended timeline of the programme," he added.No reply on the updated standards was provided by either CPCB or IIT Kanpur. TOI earlier reported on the sanctioning of the studies to review the air quality norms as early as the mid-2020s, marking the first formal effort to revisit the standards."One of our key demands is to update national air quality standards... even the Parliament committee talked about the same... But even after four years, there was slow progress, and IIT Kanpur itself delayed the final report by a year," said Gupta.