Discuss the federal coordination problems in managing air pollution across the NCR and adjoining States. How far has the CAQM Act, 2021 solved them?

Polluted air crosses State borders, but the power to regulate it stops at them. Smoke from Punjab's farm fires, trucks from Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, and Delhi's own traffic all mix over one region. The CAQM Act, 2021 set up one statutory body for the "NCR and adjoining areas" [2]. It has brought the region under one framework, but it has not yet fully fixed coordination on the ground.

Federal coordination problems

• Mismatch between where pollution starts and who controls it: the polluting State pays little of the cost and the State that suffers has no power over the source. A Parliamentary Standing Committee (2025) called it a regional problem that needs Delhi, Haryana, UP and Rajasthan to act together [3].
• Too many agencies, weak authority: CPCB, State pollution boards, municipal bodies and transport departments work in separate silos. The earlier body, EPCA, was created by a 1998 notification and had no statutory backing [2].
• Cross-border leakage: one State's ban can be avoided in the next. When CAQM delayed the fuel ban on End-of-Life (EoL) vehicles, it cited worries about cross-border fuelling [4]. Diesel goods vehicles from outside Delhi needed separate GRAP curbs [1].
• Unequal capacity and political will: Delhi itself asked for relief from enforcing the fuel ban, citing infrastructure problems [4].
• Out-of-date shared data: the Committee found the source apportionment studies (which measure each source's share) out of date [3]. Without current figures, States keep blaming each other.

How far the Act has helped

• Gains:
• One statutory body now has region-wide power to issue directions and hear complaints, and the Act repealed the 1998 EPCA notification [2].
• Rules now apply across the whole region. The revised GRAP (Graded Response Action Plan) extends Stage III vehicle curbs to Gurugram, Faridabad, Ghaziabad, Gautam Budh Nagar and Sonipat. It restricts BS-IV buses coming from adjoining States from Stage I [1].

• There is now a shared-funding model. The NCRPB scheme (₹9,585 crore) pairs central support with State tax concessions to replace old trucks and buses [5].

• Gaps:

• The States still do the enforcing. Direction No. 89 (the EoL fuel ban) was phased in and then deferred [4].
• GRAP acts mainly during winter emergencies, while vehicle pollution goes on all year.
• The data needed to share responsibility fairly is still missing [3].

The Act has fixed the structure of coordination, but how well it works in practice still varies from State to State. The next steps are:

• an airshed-wide action plan with targets for each State;
• regularly updated source studies;
• funding tied to results, so States are rewarded for meeting targets.

This kind of cooperative federalism is needed to secure the right to clean air under Article 21 and to meet SDG 11.6 on urban air quality.