7 months, 7 fronts: states draw up action plan for pollution season

New Delhi: Ahead of the infamous 'pollution season' of Delhi-NCR, all stakeholder states have submitted their IEC (Information, Education and Communication) Action Plans -- a to-do list to be implemented between September 2026 to March 2027-- which Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav reviewed on Thursday.

Yadav reportedly urged a "zero-tolerance" policy toward non-conforming entities like industrial units and sought that all states draw up pollution 'hotspot'-specific action plans.

The focus this year is ensuring sector-specific implementation right at the municipality level and bringing accountability for this, which has led to the IEC action plan approach.


Each state's IEC action plan identifies 7-8 pollution 'sectors' on which state authorities will focus over the next few months (Kharif season) which typically sees the regional AQI jump up.

For instance, Delhi's IEC action plan identifies seven pollution sectors: industrial, DG sets, road dust, construction and debris, municipal solid waste/biomass, agricultural residue and vehicular emission. It then lists out a multi-agency architecture to address this and work on citizen outreach for behaviour change.

Similarly, Punjab focuses on crop residue and has listed plans for 2,000 demonstrations of Crop Residue Machines (CRMs), 4,500 village level camps, 151 sarpanch meetings across its 23 districts of concern.

Haryana plans to cover its 14 districts from Gurugram to Charkhi Dadri with a dedicated Regional Officer and ensure intensive camps on preventing stubble burning besides holding monthly supply chain workshops linking farmers with pellet and biomass aggregators to incentivise ex-situ utilisation of crop residue. Its thermal power plants at Panipat and Jhajjar will also be under close scrutiny for crop residue usage for co-firing during this period, as per the action plan.

Uttar Pradesh's eight impacted districts -- from Noida to Bulandshahar -- will also see several regional workshops on both crop residue management and checking industrial pollution while Rajasthan will cover its seven pollution sectors with dedicated plans.

Meanwhile, the Environment Ministry and the Commission for Air Quality Management have held meetings throughout the year with all stakeholders with minister Yadav chairing 25 of them, including meetings with chief ministers.

Discussions have also been held with other stakeholder ministries -- from agriculture to urban affairs -- and more reviews are set to follow, officials from the environment ministry said.

At the Thursday review meeting, Yadav urged 'coordinated and focused' stakeholder engagement to make efforts to tackle air pollution more effective. He especially asked states to adopt a firm, "zero-tolerance" policy toward non-conforming, polluting industrial units, suggesting publicly naming non-compliant entities to enhance accountability and deter future violations, as per a government statement.

Industrial units have been given an extension until September 30 to instal Air Pollution Control Device.