The Centre for Policy Research invites you to a webinar on:
Financing Air Quality Improvement
Launch of the fourth paper in the series ‘The State of India’s Pollution Control Boards’
Presentations by:
Dr Bhargav Krishna, Fellow, CPR
Annanya Mahajan, Senior Research Associate, CPR
Followed by a panel discussion.
Panelists:
Ajay Narayan Jha, Member, 15th Finance Commission
Dr Pratima Singh, Senior Research Scientist and Head, Centre for Air Pollution Studies, CSTEP
Avani Kapur, Senior Fellow and Lead, Accountability Initiative, CPR
Moderator: Shibani Ghosh, Environmental Lawyer and former Fellow, CPR
April 27, 2023 (Thursday) | 4:30 PM to 6 PM IST
This event will be held online. Click here to register via Zoom.
The landscape of air quality financing has changed substantially over the last five years with the introduction of the National Clean Air Programme and grants by the 15th Finance Commission to urban local bodies to tackle air pollution. Aimed primarily at tackling urban air pollution, these grants to over 130 cities have contributed to a substantially increased focus on air pollution. While there has been some progress on improvements in air quality, several questions remain around the ability of urban local bodies to take on such a large quantum of funds without the requisite technical expertise, the role of State Pollution Control Boards (SPCBs) in driving action, and the ability of these institutions to engage inter-sectorally. In engaging with these questions, this panel will also unpack the role, capacity and fiscal health of SPCBs that are tasked with driving improvements in air quality at the state level.
At this event, we will also be releasing the fourth working paper of our series on ‘The State of India’s Pollution Control Boards‘ titled ‘Are they in the green?’. This paper, a first-of-its-kind in-depth study of the revenue, expenditure, investments and financial autonomy of pollution control boards in the 10 Indo-Gangetic Plain states, builds on the previous three papers in this series which focused on the board membership, leadership and technical capacity of SPCBs. While two competing narratives exist with respect to SPCB finances (they lack adequate funding, or they are ineffective at spending the funds they have), we find that the picture is more nuanced with broad implications for our ability to drive rapid improvements in air quality in the region.
Click here to register.
