<span style="color: #222222;">The 15th Finance Commission today held a meeting with the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change on Issues Related to Air Quality in Urban Areas. The commission is currently deliberating the recommendations to be made for the next five years from 2021-22 to 2025-26 and needs to formulate suitable provisions for continuing the grants for improving ambient air quality in a sustainable manner.</span><br />'' <br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">During the meeting, Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar appreciated the inclusion of Air Quality (AQ) of Delhi in the 15th Finance Commission Report of 2020-2021. He added that there would be a basic structural change in sources of AQ in the next few years and particularly in larger cities of the country due to the new regime to emission norms. He said, it would lead to a estimated reduction of 30 to 40 per cent in vehicular emission. </span><br />'' <br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">He opined that strict implementation of pollution and emission laws with harsh punishment and penalties to the defaulters is the pre-requisite for ambient AQ. Mr Javadekar also informed that with the launching National AQ Index in 2015, we now have reliable data of AQ with respect to 42 million plus cities from 2017 onwards. <br />''<br />''The Minister also informed that his Ministry is coming up with the rules for implementation of Construction and Demolition Waste Control so as to control dust which a major source of pollution in cities.</span><br />'' <br />'' <span style="color: #222222;">The Minister emphasized that the grants by Finance Commission should continue for the next five years to strengthen the network and coordination between State Pollution Control Boards- SPCBs of various cities for enforcement of AQ improvement measures. <br />''<br />''He also said that third party assessment could be done through institutes like IITs and IIMs. He also stated that the Ministry is planning to hold a conference with the SPCBs to ensure effective implementation of this programme, to which the Chairman of 15th Finance Commission has been invited as a participant.</span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;"><br />''Mr Javadekar also briefed about various reforms being taken up by the Ministry and stated that the time delays in approval of applications were drastically brought down from earlier 640 days  to 108 days now. This period will be further brought down to 50 days within next six months. <br />''<br />''With regard to ease of doing business, Mr Javadekar said, the Ministry is coming up with an amendment to the notification of environment impact assessment. The commission unilaterally appreciated the Environment Ministry's effort in building up capacity to monitor Air Quality. The Commission also stressed on the need for controlling agricultural pollution.<br />''<br />''While stressing on the need for consistent and reliable data on AQ, Chairman N K Singh stated that commission was concerned about the pollution of NCR and would address the same within the mandate of the Finance Commission. </span><br />''