IIASA works with the Government of Uttar Pradesh, India, to develop a new clean air strategy

Air pollution levels in India are among the highest in the world, posing a major threat to the country's health and economy. According to the World Bank, 100% of India’s population is exposed to unhealthy levels of ambient fine particulate matter (PM_2.5) – a harmful air pollutant that can cause lung cancer, stroke, and heart disease. Seeking to address this problem, the Department of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (DoEFCC), Government of Uttar Pradesh, recently launched the country’s first state-level clean air strategy grounded in scientific analysis and an airshed-based approach.

The document titled, Uttar Pradesh Clean Air Plan: Airshed-Based Air Quality Analysis and Recommendations (UCAP), provides a 10-year roadmap to reduce PM_2.5 levels by targeting key sources such as household emissions from cooking with solid fuels, transport, industries, and agriculture. Moving beyond city-level plans, UCAP recognizes that air pollution often travels between urban and rural areas, emphasizing the necessity of cooperation with neighboring states.

“A number of measures in five key sectors have been identified as critical for the achievement of substantial air quality improvements in Uttar Pradesh,” says Pallav Purohit, a co-author of the strategy and senior research scholar in the IIASA Pollution Management Research Group. “The strategy reviews the impact of current state policies as well as alternative policies and actions needed to further advance emission reductions with the goal to achieve India’s National Ambient Air Quality Standards for PM_2.5 (40 μg/m³) and move toward WHO Interim Target Level I (35 μg/m³), ultimately ensuring cleaner air for citizens.”

As part of their work, researchers identified a number of impactful measures, which could lead to significant air quality improvements. Those include:

• Expanding access to clean energy for cooking, 
• Enforcing ban on open burning of crop residues,
• Enforcing inspection and maintenance programs for heavy-duty vehicles,
• PM control at industrial sources,
• Improved solid waste management,
• Tightening emission standards for mobile machinery such as construction machinery,
• Efficient application of nitrogen fertilizers,
• Control of construction and road dust.

“Drawing from global experience, regulations must be paired with strong enforcement. Policy interventions should be carefully piloted, with clear timelines and milestones, to ensure a phased, effective rollout,” says Zbigniew Klimont, a co-author of the strategy and Pollution Management Research Group Leader.

The implementation of UCAP will be supported by the upcoming Uttar Pradesh Clean Air Management Project (UPCAMP), expected to be financed by a US$ 320 million loan from the World Bank. UPCAMP will focus on strengthening airshed institutional mechanisms for long-term planning, expanding air quality monitoring networks, and piloting innovative clean air measures like tunnel kiln technology, state-of-the-art supersites, and AI-enabled Decision Support System (DSS) to track pollution trends, among others.

The strategy was jointly developed by the Government of Uttar Pradesh, the World Bank, and IIASA. The Institute carried out all the modeling work and provided technical support for the development of the strategy. This effort aligns with the Institute’s broader efforts under the Air Quality Management in the Indo-Gangetic Plain and Himalayan Foothills (IGP-HF) project, which supports state and provincial governments across the Indo-Gangetic Plain region, including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Bhutan.

Reference:

DoEFCC & World Bank (2025). Uttar Pradesh Clean Air Plan: Airshed based air quality analysis and recommendations. Department of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change (DoEFCC), Government of Uttar Pradesh, India and the World Bank , Washington, D.C., [https://pure.iiasa.ac.at/20732]