India Needs Self Reliance in Air Pollution Strategy
While India has shown its technological prowess in space exploration, vaccine production, and railway modernisation under the Make in India initiative, its progress on air pollution control remains uneven and externally dependent.
Experts say a truly self-reliant—or atmanirbhar—approach to air quality management is urgently needed. Despite recurring global reports ranking Indian cities among the most polluted, much of the research and data continue to be produced or funded by foreign agencies. This over-reliance raises questions about domestic capacity, especially when local pollution control boards often return unspent funds, and elite institutions dominate international collaborations. Efforts to integrate Indian research with industry have seen some recent momentum, including the formation of the Anusandhan National Research Foundation. However, this has yet to produce transformative change in air quality. Critics highlight that, although India developed its first indigenous air quality forecasting system—SAFAR—in 2010, it is still operational in just four cities.
The situation underscores a broader problem: the absence of a unified, national air quality framework. A recent initiative led by the National Institute of Advanced Studies, under the Principal Scientific Advisor’s office, aims to address this through NARFI—a proposed resource framework for integrated airshed management, data sharing, and policy support. With world-class institutions like ESSO and the India Meteorological Department (IMD) already in place, experts argue that enhanced collaboration with the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) could set global benchmarks in air quality forecasting and management.
The call now is for India to invest in its own satellite-based data collection, expand real-time forecasting systems, and decentralise access to funding and research opportunities. A science-led, health-centric, and regionally tailored approach is seen as the path forward for India to break its dependence on external agencies and truly achieve atmanirbharta in its air pollution strategy.
