The National Green Tribunal (NGT)’s latest judgment on the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) in Dharmesh Shah v Union of India & Ors, requires the States/UT to prepare sector-wise implementation roadmaps within six months and links public funding to measurable improvements in air quality. The judgment might not spark the same firestorm like the Aravalli judgment or the battle to save Nicobar. Yet, buried within its 23 pages is a pivotal judicial intervention, a blunt recognition that India’s clean air crisis is no longer just an environmental struggle, it is a failure of public finance.

Delivered by the Southern Bench in Chennai on April 28, the judgment scrutinised the NCAP implementation across Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, and Puducherry. The findings are unsettling. While these States have dutifully checked all the boxes, from forming committees to launching portals, air pollution continues to exceed safe limits across major southern hubs.

The tribunal’s sharpest critique targets how public money is being handled. Take Karnataka as the case in point: the State received over Rs 618 crore in the NCAP and Finance Commission grants up to the FY2025-2026. However, by late 2024, only 37% of those funds were utilised. Even more revealing is where the money went. The NGT noted that over 86% of the expenditure was concentrated almost exclusively on road dust management.

Road washing, mechanical sweepers, and paving are the ‘low-hanging fruit’ of urban governance. They are easy to sanction and provide visible, politically marketable images of “action”. But Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Chennai, the most lethal pollutants don’t just come from dust. They are the products of diesel combustion, industrial fuel, and waste burning.

For years, the NCAP has functioned as a scheme obsessed with ‘disbursal’ rather than ‘outcomes’. Cities compete for funds and report expenditure, but the fundamental questions are rarely asked: Did PM 2.5 levels actually drop? Did respiratory illnesses decline? Did emissions from industrial clusters or diesel fleets fall?

The NGT has now directed that future spending must be linked to “sector-specific emission reductions” and “measurable air quality outcomes”. This is a massive shift. It moves the needle from ‘symbolic environmentalism’ toward hard institutional accountability.