A new book shows India’s pollution emergency has once again got scant attention in the Union Budget
· Scroll
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The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) fights India’s battle on pollution as a poor lone ranger. It funds the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), operates a major scheme called Control of Pollution and provides funding for the Commission on Air Quality Management (CAQM). Earlier, it used to run a small scheme, Abatement of Pollution, which was disbanded in 2020-’21. No other ministry or department of the central government has any scheme or programme to fight air and water pollution.
CPCB, the pollution control institutional arm of the government, has remained stultified during the Modi government’s 13 years. While it was alive in terms of expenditure growth in the first term with a budget of Rs 0.69 billion in 2013-’14 rising to Rs 1.14 billion in 2018-19, its financing in the second term is nothing short of total neglect.
Its budget has been almost static – Rs 1 billion each in 2019-’20 and 2020-’21, Rs 1.16 billion in 2021-’22, which fell to Rs 0.97 billion in 2022-’23, ending with Rs 1.05 billion in the last year of Modi 2.0, at a level lower in absolute numbers than five years ago. It is amazing to see the PCCB budget recording a negative...