ANNOUNCEMENTS
Deteriorating air quality is one of the major environmental concerns for the world. It is responsible for tremendous increase in mortality rates among humans, and an irreversible impact on flora and fauna. Many international organisations have tried implementing systemised measures to curb the deteriorating local and global air quality. Yet, it is a long road to walk in achieving this milestone. From the time Indian government legislated CPCB, till the introduction of newly formed landmark strategy programme called 'the National Clean Air Programme', the country at large and at the individual state and city levels have made numerous successful and growing efforts to control air quality. Synergising the actions in NCAP and other important schemes and initiatives by government is the new way to control and mitigate air quality, and give people a breathable environment to live in. This thesis propounds the progress of NCAP in the non-attainment city of Pune by evaluating how far the implementation has come into the existence and how the city is adapting to the newly built measures deduced to abate air pollution. Pune lies on the western margin of the Deccan Plateau, 560m above the sea level surrounded in the arms of the western ghats. This brings an advantage of the westerly winds, leading to continuous dispersion of pollutants in turn reducing the concentration to a significant extent. However, after the infraeconomic driven development paved its way in the city, environmental robustness was naturally sidelined. It eventually led to cramped up population spaces, resources exploitation, uncontrolled city expansion, shrinking green cover, ultimately breaking the carrying capacity of the city airshed. The study evaluates the indicators designed, based on action points mentioned in the NCAP Report and the CAP of Pune. The results obtained are meant to focus on highlighting the capacity restraints, limitations, gaps and challenges, to develop and strengthen the action points in future, with a larger goal of balancing the environmental, economic and social health.
Keywords: NCAP, particulate matter, participatory stakeholder approach, qualitative and quantitative assessment, indicators.
