Relevance (UPSC): GS-III – Environment (air pollution, governance)

Each winter, north India breathes through a mask of smog. The recipe is familiar: temperature inversion lowers the mixing height; the boundary layer shrinks; winds slow; and the region’s everyday emissions—traffic, industry, construction dust, waste burning—get trapped. Add festival fireworks for a night and stubble burning around the peak harvest week, and the Air Quality Index shoots up. This year another piece enters the puzzle: a likely La Niña phase that may lengthen and cool winter spells, favouring longer pollution episodes.

Bans alone cannot fix a problem spread across an air-shed that includes Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. We need coordinated timing, not just intention.

What works:

• Forecast-led action: Use high-resolution weather and pollution forecasts to pre-announce curbs during likely bad windows (for example, 72 hours before a temperature inversion).
  
• Target base emissions: Strict dust control at sites, vacuum-sweep and wash arterial roads, enforce fuel and stack norms, and stop waste burning.
  
• Crop-residue strategy: Pay for in-situ machines (Happy Seeder, mulchers), expand ex-situ offtake into biomass pellets and bio-energy; align procurement calendars so harvest and stubble burning do not bunch with the festival week.
  
• Regional governance: Empower the Commission for Air Quality Management to run one playbook for the whole air-shed; link city plans under the National Clean Air Programme to shared targets and daily dashboards.
  
• Public tools that nudge: Real-time pollution maps around schools and hospitals, congestion pricing pilots, and cleaner bus and metro frequency during forecasted smog spells.
  

Key terms : Temperature inversion—warm air aloft caps colder air near ground, trapping pollutants; mixing height—vertical room available for dispersal; air-shed—a region sharing the same air flow; stubble burning—field residue burning after harvest; secondary particulates—tiny particles formed in air from gases.

Exam hook: Show how meteorology × emissions × enforcement must be sequenced; cite air-shed management, CAQM, GRAP (Graded Response Action Plan) and the National Clean Air Programme.

UPSC Prelims question:
With reference to air-quality governance in the National Capital Region, consider the following statements:

1. The Graded Response Action Plan is enforceable under the Environment (Protection) Act through the Commission for Air Quality Management.
   
2. The National Clean Air Programme sets a legally binding target to meet national standards by a fixed year.
   Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
   (a) 1 only (b) 2 only (c) Both 1 and 2 (d) Neither 1 nor 2
   Answer: (a)
   

One-line wrap: Fight smog like a chess game—move early, act region-wide, and strike at everyday emissions when the weather turns against us.