Evaluate the role of the Commission for Air Quality Management as a model for inter-state airshed governance in India.

An airshed is a region that shares one air mass, so its pollution crosses state borders. The Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) was set up under the CAQM in NCR and Adjoining Areas Act, 2021 (Act No. 29 of 2021) [1]. It replaced the court-appointed EPCA [2] and is India's first statutory inter-state air regulator. It is a promising model, but an incomplete one.

Strengths as a model

• Legal power across states: Section 12 lets it issue directions "notwithstanding" other laws [1]. Its reach covers the NCR and adjoining areas of Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan and UP [2].
• Court-made plan turned into a statutory one: GRAP began with the Supreme Court's 2016 order in M.C. Mehta v. Union of India. CAQM now runs it as a uniform schedule for the whole NCR [3].
• Science-led and adaptive: Its decisions use the CPCB's AQI and IMD/IITM forecasts [3]. The 2026 revision merged repeated actions into 48 graded actions [4].
• Evidence base: Its expert review of 2015–2025 studies recognised transboundary transport of PM2.5, meaning pollution blown in from outside Delhi [5].

Limitations

• Delhi-centric trigger: Each stage is triggered only by Delhi's AQI, but the actions apply across the NCR [3]. A city reading is being used for a regional problem.
• Episodic, not structural: In summer, dust (27%) and transport (19%) are the largest sources of PM2.5 [5]. They pollute all year, yet GRAP only switches on when AQI crosses a threshold.
• Weak enforcement: Most Stage-I actions repeat existing NGT and SC orders [3]. Implementation depends on state municipal bodies, police and pollution control boards.
• Court dependence and equity: The SC still steers the plan. In 2025 it ordered states to pay construction workers from the labour cess. Payments for about 95,000 Haryana workers were still pending at that time [6].
• Narrow geography: The Indo-Gangetic airshed stretches across several states and countries [7], while CAQM's remit stops at the NCR and its adjoining areas.

Overall, CAQM gives India a working template: a statutory, multi-state, science-led regulator. Its value, though, is limited by a reactive design and the capacity of the states that carry out its orders. The way forward is:

• trigger stages by sub-region;
• add year-round, source-wise plans aligned with NCAP;
• make worker compensation automatic;
• set up similar bodies for the wider Indo-Gangetic Plain, which needs coordinated airshed management [7].

Reformed this way, CAQM can protect the Article 21 right to clean air and advance SDG 11.6.