Virendra Singh Rawat / Lucknow
The Uttar Pradesh government is drafting India’s first airshed based Clean Air Action Plan to improve the ambient air quality in the urban centres.
The ambitious project has been launched with technical cooperation from the World Bank. Other top national and international bodies will also be roped in to prepare the UP airshed management blueprint.
Airshed refers to a part of the atmosphere that behaves in a coherent way with respect to emissions. Conversely, it also refers to the geographical area covered by such an air supply.
Taking the agenda forward, a World Bank delegation helmed by its lead environment expert Karin Shepardson had called upon UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath in Lucknow last week.
The proposed UP action plan would determine imperatives to achieve the targets under the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) and 15th Finance Commission.
Launched in 2019, NCAP is India’s flagship mission for better air quality in 122 cities through a holistic and collaborative approach.
Meanwhile, Yogi said UP’s economy was expanding fast and currently is India’s second largest state economy.
“Now, UP is bracing up to prepare an air pollution management model for other states to replicate,” he said adding more than 17 million free domestic gas connections had been distributed in the state under the flagship Ujjwala Yojana.
Meanwhile, the CM has directed officials to launch clean energy pilot projects based on biogas, bio-CNG and farm waste management. Besides, the state will explore the possibility of setting up cowdung based biogas refilling by starting a research project.
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The government is also keen to promote the use of electric vehicles by harnessing the World Bank roadmap to encourage e-mobility in 17 most polluted cities in the first phase.