National Clean Air Programme ill-conceived; cities not utilising funds: Ramesh

New Delhi, Jun 21 (PTI) Congress leader Jairam Ramesh alleged on Saturday that the National Clean Air Programme is "ill-conceived" as many cities have not utilised the funds under it, with Delhi using only one-third of the amount received.

"The National Clean Air Program is ill-conceived in many ways.

"One of the biggest blunders has been the dilution of its focus to measure and monitor only PM10 (particulate matter of less than 10 mm diameter) -- rather than PM2.5 which is the cause of the thousands of deaths we see annually," the former Union environment minister said in a post on X.

"Now we learn that even as the scope and ambit of this program was shrunk, the funds utilisation has remained uninspiring. On average, the 130 cities receiving money under this scheme have utilised only 70-78.5 per cent of the funds received," he claimed.

Key cities like Delhi -- where the "annual air pollution season" is a public health crisis and a "national shame" -- have used less than 33 per cent of the funds received under the scheme, Ramesh claimed.

"Neighbouring Faridabad spent only 26.7 per cent of the funds. Noida spent less than 10 per cent of the funds allocated and even the PM's constituency of Varanasi trailed far behind the national average with a fund utilisation of 48.85 per cent," the Congress leader said in his post. PTI SKC RC