Air quality, governance, and middle class environmentalism in Pune, India

Abstract

India faces the heavy burden of air pollution and contains some cities with the poorest air quality in the world. Using the example of Pune, one of the non-attainment cities under the National Clean Air Program (NCAP), this qualitative research adds to a growing body of literature on governance in Indian cities through the lens of air pollution. The study traces the air quality improvement efforts in the city since the late 1990s. Despite the implementation of two city-based action plans, air quality in Pune continues to worsen. Air pollution comes from multiple sources, depends on a complex range of regional factors and needs sustained, coordinated efforts at airshed level. A city-based approach for air quality improvement has not proven effective due to the multiplicity of agents and segmented power at city level. The research also highlights how middle-class imaginaries of the environment have come to dominate urban air quality policy, often through legal and civic activism aligned with neoliberal urban planning. Multiple air quality interventions have occurred without addressing the consumption-driven behaviours such as the proliferation of private vehicles that contribute to pollution. The study argues that air pollution is not merely a technical or regulatory issue but is produced and sustained through unequal urban processes that privilege middle-class consumption patterns.