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About IiT

India in Transition (IiT), allows scholars from all over the world, the opportunity to exchange various analyses and innovative ideas about India's current status and growth.

IiT presents brief, analytical perspectives on the ongoing transformations in contemporary India based on cutting-edge research in the areas of economy, environment, foreign policy and security, human capital, science and technology, and society and culture. A Hindi, Bangla, and Tamil translation accompanies each published article.

In addition to appearing on CASI's website, IiT articles are published in India-based outlets Scroll.in, The Hindu: Business Line, and Amar Ujala. Past issues have appeared in the op-ed pages of the Indian newspapers Hindustan and Livemint. All viewpoints, positions, and conclusions expressed in IiT are solely those of the author(s) and not specifically those of CASI.

Solving India’s “Severe Plus” Pollution Crisis: License Raj vs. Regulatory Innovation

Anant Sudarshan

April 14, 2025

Air pollution has become as much a part of North Indian winters as weddings and festivals. The average levels of particulate air pollution over November 2024 in India’s capital city of Delhi crossed 250 µg/m³, a number so high as to be almost uninformative. The WHO standard for safe air is set at 5 µg/m³, and India’s own air quality standard sits at 40 µg/m³.