Delhi air crisis | Industries told to install monitoring devices, agencies asked to expedite pollution control measures

New Delhi: With the Supreme Court monitoring government actions to improve air quality in Delhi National Capital Region, the Union Environment Ministry on Wednesday asked over 2,000 industries to install air pollution monitoring and control devices by December while instructing the agencies in the national capital region to fast-track the air pollution control measures they plan to undertake.

These include urgent repair of roads and filling the potholes, completing the pending work in a time-bound manner and mobile application-based monitoring involving the citizens. Also 62 traffic hotspots have been identified in Delhi requiring smart traffic management.

At a review meeting attended by the MoEF top brass, Commission for Air Quality Management, Central Pollution Control Board and officials of Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Rajasthan governments, Union Environment Minister Bhupendra Yadav underlined the need to shift the public transport system to electric vehicles quickly.

Currently, there are around 3400 electric buses in Delhi and the number is expected to be around 5,000 by March 2026, the ministry says in a statement. But it is lower than 10,000 buses which the Supreme Court in 1998 asked the Delhi Transport Corporation to have in the fleet.

The review comes a day after the Union Health Ministry informed the Parliament that in three years between 2022 and 2024, the emergency departments of six central government hospitals in Delhi saw reporting of over 204,000 cases of respiratory illnesses, of which more than 20,000 needed hospital admission.

For Chennai and Mumbai, data for two years (2023 and 2024) show just around 3,000 cases in the emergency departments and less than 900 hospital admission.

Environmentalists point out transport, industry, waste burning, household fuel and dust are important components of air pollution in Delhi NCR.

According to a new estimate, Delhi NCR has 2.97 crore vehicles, mostly small cars, with an annual 7% growth. Nearly 50% of them are in Delhi.

The growth in the EV personal car segment is also low. Between January and October, 2025 there were registration of 17942 personal electric vehicles as against 1,27,099 fossil fuel based cars.

“Delhi-NCR cannot hide behind the smokescreen of farm fires any more. While farm fires have contributed much less to local air quality this winter, the state of the air we breathe has been ranging from ‘very poor’ to ‘severe’ – this exposes the huge impact that local sources are having,” said Anumita Roychowdhury, executive director at the Centre for Science and Environment.

The ministry asked 2,254 industrial units having high potential for causing pollution like metal, textiles, food/ food processing and other red-category industries to install online emission monitoring systems along with anti-pollution devices.

On dust control, the ministry asked the officials to urgently carry out road repaibuild end-to-end pavements and undertake widespread greening of open spaces.