Over the past two decades, India’s air quality has deteriorated significantly, making air pollution the second largest risk factor contributing to the country’s risk burden. As per the World Health Organization, air quality in India has been deteriorating since the 1990s and by the year 2017, almost 97% of the country’s population was exposed to unhealthy levels of ambient PM2.5. A 2018 report titled, ‘Burden of Disease Attributable to Major Air Pollution Sources in India’ by the Health Effects Institute projects a rise in annual deaths in India due to air pollution from 1.1 million in 2015 to 1.7 million in 2030.

Air pollution affects individual health of citizens, increases mortality and morbidity rates, and contributes to climate change. The India State-Level Disease Burden Initiative by the Public Health Foundation of India, has published a scientific paper on 22 December 2020 on the health and economic impact of air pollution in Lancet Planetary Health, which documents that the economic loss due to lost output from premature deaths and morbidity from air pollution was 1.4% of the GDP in India in 2019, equivalent to INR 260,000 crores (US$ 36.8 billion). 

Air pollution inflicts a massive toll on the Indian economy. Its scale, complexity and urgency necessitate a strong, coherent and coordinated fiscal response by the government. However, with recent COVID-19 relief and stimulus packages, there is limited room available for fiscal measures to improve air quality. The need is to create financial architecture backed by private-finance, and adoption of community-based solutions, that can mobilize clean-air solutions in India. 

• Focus on Green sectors: Green sectors such as clean energy and e-mobility are likely to be the driving force for developing and implementing tangible solutions to improve air quality. A dedicated green focus could play an instrumental role in catalysing growth of such green industries and simultaneously addressing the twin problems of air pollution and climate change.
• Innovations & Technology Solutions: Since 2014, more than 40 environmental startups have been set up in India with a singular goal – to combat the country’s air pollution crisis. These companies and initiatives are trying to solve two problems that can plague the public sector: difficulty in large-scale coordination and a lack of tech solutions. Business and industry can significantly accelerate momentum towards achieving India’s air quality standards by providing the necessary investment, technical expertise and large-scale coordination. For example, IKEA, a Swedish multinational group launched a collection in 2019 that used rice straws (crop residue) as raw material for furniture and home accessories.  IKEA’s innovative solution showcases the potential of repurposing a waste product into an economically viable resource that reduces air pollution. 
• Investments made through Corporate Social Responsibility: CSR funds can be effectively utilised by businesses to address the interrelated challenges of air pollution and climate change. A notable CSR initiative to improve air quality is the “Creating Oxygen Hubs” drive, launched by Cummins India Limited in Pune, Maharashtra. Cummins partnered with various NGOs, civic authorities, the Maharashtra forest department and defence department, and local volunteers to plant more than 35,000 trees in the city in multiple phases.
• Adopting Community-Based Solutions: There are various community-based solutions that can be incorporated to mitigate the growing negative impacts of air pollution on vulnerable communities. For example, women in rural areas can be engaged in entrepreneurial projects of selling clean cooking fuel, and who can then build capacities within the rural communities to use and switch to cleaner cooking methods. The community-based approach of women participating in capacity-building initiatives to represent the value of cleaner cooking fuel to households can attract households towards this lifestyle and create awareness of the significant improvement in health these changes would bring. The immediate measures that should be utilised to mitigate the impacts of air pollution include appropriate financial investment from the government, awareness generation of the health impacts of indoor pollution and receding forest covers, and the participation of vulnerable communities in decision-making.

The air pollution crisis will require innovative, collaborative solutions from public, private, and civil society stakeholders. Institutions, governments, philanthropies, and members of the academe have been fighting the battle for clean air for decades; it is time to tap into the power of a multi-stakeholder framework to hurdle this challenge.