Delhi-NCR Air Pollution Review Orders 191 Polluting Units Sealed

With winter smog thickening over the capital region, Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Bhupender Yadav took the chair on 14 November 2026 at a meeting that went through, state by state, what Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan have actually done about the air. It was the latest of more than 30 such sittings he has held with the four governments and their municipal bodies over the past year. The message he left was blunt: the plans are written, what is missing is enforcement on the ground, fixed to a timetable and the same on both sides of every state border, because smoke does not stop at one.

Who was in the room

State environment ministers Manjinder Singh Sirsa of Delhi, Rao Narbir Singh of Haryana and Arun Kumar Saxena of Uttar Pradesh joined online. Rajesh Verma, who chairs the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM), gave the overview of what each state has and has not delivered, while CAQM Member Secretary Tarun Pithode presented the progress. Ministry Secretary Narendra Bhooshan attended, as did Amandeep Garg, Additional Secretary in the Ministry and Chairman of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), who logged in from Antalya in Türkiye.

The orders issued

The CPCB was told to seal, without further delay, the 191 polluting industries sitting in non-conforming areas that had not so much as placed an order for pollution control equipment. States were warned that if automatic number plate recognition cameras are not installed, criminal prosecution of the transport officials responsible would follow after 30 November 2026. Each state must also put a Secretary-rank officer in charge of named cities — seven in Haryana and four each in Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan — to make field visits and report to CAQM every week, and CAQM was asked to serve notice on officers who do not perform.

Where the numbers stand

The particulate emission limit of 50 mg per normal cubic metre is to be enforced strictly, with closure, sealing or a cut in electricity for a plant that breaches it. Dusty construction and demolition work stands barred across the region from 5 to 20 November 2026 under a CAQM order of 30 October. The civic body in Delhi must finish Multi-Lane Free Flow systems at 154 border entry points by 31 December 2026, and legacy dumps at Okhla, Ghazipur, Bhalswa and Bandhwari are to be cleared, with more than 3,000 active construction waste sites physically inspected. Under the PARIVARTAN scheme, trucks and buses older than the BS-VI norm are to give way to BS-VI, CNG and electric vehicles by 2028.

Watching from a screen

The minister pointed to Delhi’s Integrated Command and Control Centre, opened on 5 October 2026, and to CAQM’s PAVAN — the Platform for Air Quality Vigilance and Analytics for NCR — which pulls air quality, emission, weather, satellite and compliance data onto one screen. Sensors, cameras and satellites, he said, must be read alongside physical inspection so that a violation is caught and acted on quickly. The CPCB’s winter enforcement procedure runs from 01.10.2026 to 28.02.2027.