The Central Pollution Control Board initiated revision of National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS).Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (IITK) was engaged to carry out the base work. The base work involved review of criteria and standards, current levels of pollutants in ambient air, Indian Studies on health effects of air pollutants, etc;. A Steering Committee composing experts from academia, research Institutes, etc. was set up to review the methodology & progress of the work in CPCB. In order to get public comments/ opinion, the draft standards were circulated to the leading NGOs, Industry Association, State Pollution Control Boards and other Stakeholders and the proposal was also made available on CPCBs website. CPCB received a large number of comments and they were discussed in detail by the Steering Committee. Prior to notification, draft standards were again deliberated by peer & Core Committee of CPCB, Central Board in its 148th meeting, in a special meeting with experts and NGO and expert Committee of the Ministry.

No separate standards have been retained for industrial areas, and uniform standards have been notified considering the enforcement difficulties due to intermixing of land use, and the fact that all human beings need the same quality of ambient air.

New parameters have been included. Six new pollutants have been included in the revised standards. These are: Particulate Matter of size less than 2.5 um (PM2.5), Ozone (O3) Benzene (C6 H6 ) Benzo (a) pyrene (BaP), Asenic (As) and Nickel (Ni).

These standards can be compared with select international Standards. In general the Standards are at par with EU and WHO. Standards of USA are generally relaxed than ours. Standards for PM10 and PM2.5 are relaxed as compared to EU, USA and WHO where as standards for CO and SO2 are more stringent.

Air quality monitoring network will be strengthened with development of infrastructure of monitoring of new parameters as per revised protocol. Certain steps are being taken for implementation of the revised standards. Hotspots are being identified based on the monitoring data. Assessment of sources and their contribution and development of action plans which may include regions of source-specific emission norms and regulating activities in the area are other steps.

CPCB Strengthening NAMP

The CPCB is strengthening NAMP is terms of number of stations and number of parameters being monitored. A total of 29, 51 and 74 new stations were sanctioned during 2007-08, 2008-09 and 2009 -10 respectively in cities like Srinagar, Leh Una, Sunder Nagar, Dharamshala, Manali, Rudrapur, Rishikesh, Nailgonda, Nellore, Chitoor, Guntur etc. Monitoring of particulate matter with size less than 2.5 micrometer (PM 2.5) is being initiated in cities namely, Bangalore, Ahmadabad, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Vadodara, Mysore and Ankleshwar. Monitoring of PM. 2.5 is already being carried out in Delhi.

There are 363 monitoring stations in 31 states under NAMP.The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) is carrying out manuals monitoring at 06 monitoring locations in Delhi: Shahdara Ashok Vihar, Janakpuri, Siri Fort, Nizamuddin and Pitam pura.The CPCB is carrying out continuous ambient air quality monitoring using automatic analysers at seven locations: Siri Fort, ITO, Delhi College of Engineering, dilshad Garden, Dwarka, Siri Fort and East Arjun Nagar.#