Delhi raises ECC, unveils time-bound clean-air plan and IIT Madras pilot as Ghaziabad suburb ranks world’s most polluted

Delhi is tightening its crackdown on dirty air with a series of measures spanning fees, enforcement and experimentation, even as a suburban town in neighbouring Ghaziabad was ranked the world’s most polluted city.

The capital has raised the Environmental Compensation Charge (ECC) on commercial vehicles entering the city and set a 5 per cent annual increase every April, a move backed by the Supreme Court and aimed at deterring polluting vehicles and pushing cleaner transport choices.

Officials say the city is pursuing a time-bound strategy that leans on stricter enforcement and cleaner transport. The plan identifies 11 priority sectors for implementation and focuses on the core sources of pollution. Over the past decade, age-based regulations have also pushed older cars off Delhi’s streets, reshaping the city’s motoring landscape in the name of public health.

In a bid to test new tools, Delhi has signed a memorandum of understanding with IIT Madras to trial “smog-eating” surfaces that use titanium dioxide to break down nitrogen dioxide and volatile organic compounds under sunlight. The six-month pilot will evaluate whether such coatings can help reduce harmful pollutants and inform wider deployment.

The air quality crisis continues to carry a heavy human cost. Fine particles such as PM2.5 can lodge deep in the lungs and even enter the bloodstream, and children, older people, and those with asthma or heart conditions are most vulnerable. What was once framed as an environmental challenge is increasingly showing up in hospital wards, maternity clinics and workplaces across the country.

As temperatures rise and weather patterns grow unpredictable, the discussion of stroke risk has widened beyond genetics or lifestyle to include the air and heat people endure. Data obtained through a Right to Information request offered a nuanced picture regarding Delhi minister Manjinder Singh Sirsa.

It validated the BJP leader’s claim that the city witnessed 200 days with an Air Quality Index below 200, while noting this was not the first time such a threshold had been achieved. On the funding side, the Rekha Gupta government says a Rs 22,236 crore green outlay would be mapped against environmental outcomes, with the Prime Minister’s Office watching.

Beyond government action, innovators are also moving in. Angad Daryani, founder of the air-purification startup Praan, has built a climate tech venture focused on tackling pollution at scale, describing a path shaped by hands-on engineering and experimentation.

Together, the fee hikes, targeted enforcement, and urban-tech trials point to a multi-pronged push to clean up the capital’s air. Whether they add up fast enough will be measured in readings on Delhi’s monitors—and in the day-to-day health of its residents.