The Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) Act, 2021 was a legislative step to replace judicial governance of Delhi's air pollution. Has it succeeded? Analyse the institutional design, powers, and limitations of CAQM.

The CAQM Act, 2021 created a Parliament-backed statutory commission for NCR and adjoining areas, replacing the Supreme Court-created EPCA (1998) and shifting air-quality governance from judicial improvisation to legislative mandate. Five years on, CAQM has built institutional capacity but not yet delivered outcomes — a partial success at best.

Institutional design: a genuine advance

• Airshed-based jurisdiction covering Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, UP and Rajasthan answers the core problem that pollution ignores state boundaries; CAQM's own expert review confirms transboundary movement of pollutants across the airshed [1].
• Its orders override State Pollution Control Boards and urban bodies, resolving the federal fragmentation EPCA could never surmount [2].
• Expert-driven functioning: a 33-member panel from IITs, academia and research institutes produced a source-apportionment meta-analysis (2015–25) [1].

Powers: statutory teeth

• Section 12 directions, backed by penalties up to ₹1 crore and five years' imprisonment, exceed Environment Protection Act, 1986 sanctions; CAQM has issued 78 directions and 11 advisories and deployed CPCB inspection teams [2].
• Year-round operationalisation of GRAP (notified by MoEFCC), with graded invocation and revocation tied to AQI thresholds [3].

Limitations: why success remains partial

• Outcome deficit: Delhi's 2025 annual PM2.5 of 97 µg/m³ and PM10 of 198 µg/m³, though the best since 2018, remain far above NAAQS (40 and 60 µg/m³) and NCAP's 40% reduction target [4][5].
• Epistemic gap: in January 2026 the Supreme Court held CAQM "failing in its duty" for seeking two months merely to identify pollution sources — enforcement preceded diagnosis [6].
• Diffused sources: secondary particulates (27%) and transport (23%) dominate winter PM2.5, demanding behavioural and inter-sectoral change beyond seasonal bans [1].
• Continued judicial supervision itself shows the legislative substitution is incomplete.

CAQM has correctly diagnosed the institutional problem but under-delivered on outcomes. Converting its directions into verifiable, source-specific and year-round compliance — with citizens treated as co-responsible actors, as the Court urged — would let statutory governance finally displace judicial oversight and give Article 21's right to clean air real content.