Kiran Bedi urges systemic reform to lead India’s clean-air fight

Former IPS officer and former Puducherry Lieutenant Governor Kiran Bedi on Wednesday has urged the government to undertake deep, structural reforms to combat India’s persistent air pollution crisis, asserting that “the system must be fixed first for clean air to follow.”In a detailed blog titled “Five Reforms India Needs for Clean Air,” Bedi argued that India’s current approach is fragmented and reactive, and that meaningful change will require empowered institutions with “authority, clarity and staying power.” She stressed that the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) needs stronger leadership, noting that its current structure lacks the administrative heft required to influence ministries and budgets effectively.Bedi recommended appointing a serving secretary-level officer to head CAQM, enabling coordination across states at the pace the crisis demands. She also proposed integrating CAQM directly into the Environment Ministry so that clean air becomes “a core function of governance, not a peripheral report-writing body.”
Among her key suggestions was the creation of a five-year Clean Air Mission Fund to ensure stable financing for monitoring, enforcement, modelling and health communication. She emphasised that CAQM must develop its own enforcement cadre, saying a regulator “without its own inspectorate is a regulator in name only.”Bedi also called for a National Council of Environment Ministers to harmonise standards, coordinate fuel and transport reforms, and manage cross-border pollution. Additionally, she recommended establishing an AI-enabled National Clean Air Data Centre to enable predictive, real-time governance.Her proposals come as Delhi-NCR continues to grapple with hazardous air quality, especially in winter. On December 1, the Supreme Court directed the Centre and CAQM to revisit their action plan, noting that pollution cannot be treated as a seasonal problem and must be addressed through long-term structural measures. Environmental groups have long argued that emergency curbs such as GRAP cannot substitute for systemic, sustained reform—an argument echoed strongly in Bedi’s call for institutional overhaul.