Noting that air pollution has reached the crisis level in Northern India, government think-tank Niti Aayog has recommended a slew of measures like imposing higher taxes on petrol in and around the more polluted cities to curb it. <br/><br/>The Aayog in its 'Three Year Action Agenda to be implemented till 2019-20' and released by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, also suggested making public transportation faster and more comfortable to discourage the use of private vehicles.<br/>It has also identified coal power plants, brick kilns, vehicles, cooking and heating fires which burn biomass, rubbish burning and burning of crop residue and dust from construction as the major source of air pollution.<br/>It noted that though pollution's alarming level is much publicised in Delhi, it is also widespread in many other cities and as many as ten of the top 20 most polluted cities in the world are in India.<br/>The Aayog recognises measures like conversion of vehicles from petrol and diesel to CNG, a shift to electric vehicles, higher parking fees with park and ride facilities and enforcing traffic laws with greater force to control pollution in the cities.<br/>The agenda also recommends actions like finding alternatives to crop residue burning, reducing pollution from cooking fires and installing flu gas de-sulpherizers on all coal power plants in or close to densely populated areas except those less than 5MW capacity and those older than 25 years by 2020. <br/><br/>It also suggested switching to cleaner technologies to reduce pollution from brick kilns considerably within three years.