Haryana’s NCR districts ill-prepared for winter pollution
Air quality monitoring, fuel station enforcement, electric buses and vehicle scrapping remain far behind targets with barely 2 months left before pollution season begins
With barely two months remaining before Haryana’s National Capital Region (NCR) districts enter their most polluted months of the year, preparedness across nearly every front—air quality monitoring, fuel station enforcement, clean public transport and vehicle scrapping—remains far from complete.
The startling situation was highlighted in records shared during a recent review meeting between Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini and Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav.
Only 22 of the 45 mandated Continuous Ambient Air Quality Monitoring Stations (CAAQMS) had been installed across NCR Haryana till June 30, leaving a shortfall of 23 stations. Full installation has now been retargeted for September 30, leaving authorities little more than two months to more than double the existing coverage before pollution levels typically spike. Vehicular emissions, stubble burning and construction dust keep the region’s air toxic for nearly six to seven months of the year, according to various studies and reports.
Enforcement infrastructure meant to keep polluting vehicles off the road is equally behind schedule. Not a single one of the 2,780 fuel stations across NCR Haryana has installed the Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras required to enforce the “No PUCC, No Fuel” rule, which is due to take effect on October 1. This means the mechanism intended to deny fuel to non-compliant vehicles does not yet exist on the ground.
The picture is no different in public transport. Of the 875 electric buses targeted across NCR Haryana, only 70 are operational. Gurugram and Faridabad, which together account for a target of 600 buses, have none in operation.
Enforcement against ageing, polluting vehicles has also lagged. Of nearly 8.9 lakh recorded end-of-life vehicles, only 4,722 were seized and 2,134 scrapped between January and June, against a target seizure rate of 100 vehicles a day.
Industrial compliance shows a similar gap, with 956 of the 968 industries required to install Air Pollution Control Devices yet to do so.
Road redevelopment, which directly affects dust and traffic emissions, is also progressing slowly. Gurugram has completed just 228 km against a 2026 target of 494.92 km.
On the waste management front, Gurugram is processing none of its target of 1,200 tonnes per day of municipal solid waste and recorded 399 winter burning incidents last season—the highest in NCR Haryana. Meanwhile, the clearance of legacy waste dumps has covered only 2.15 lakh metric tonnes against the required 15 lakh metric tonnes.
Taken together, the figures indicate that the region is heading into its most polluted stretch of the year with its monitoring, enforcement and mitigation systems still substantially underdeveloped, raising questions over whether the administration can bridge these gaps before winter sets in.
