Council on Energy, Environment and Water Integrated | International | Independent
Each winter thousands of construction workers in Delhi-NCR face financial uncertainty. Each time air pollution reaches severe levels, authorities impose construction bans, halting work for weeks or even months. In 2023 and 2024 alone, construction was halted for a total of 78 days under the Graded Response Action Plan, implemented to address worsening air quality. While crucial, these measures also meant that thousands of migrant workers were left without a source of income. No work means no wages – or significantly reduced earnings – forcing many to reconsider working in Delhi-NCR during winter months due to financial insecurity. Meanwhile, these recurring bans lead to massive project delays, causing substantial financial losses for developers and investors.
This is not just a Delhi-specific issue. Mumbai, Pune, and other cities have started implementing similar measures during the winter months. While controlling air pollution is necessary, the economic consequences are severe. And here's the reality: as cities expand, the demand for construction (and demolition) rises, increasing the sectoral contribution to air pollution. Construction activities are one of the major sources of urban air pollution. In New Delhi, for instance, during the winter months of 2024, around 3 per cent of PM2.5 in the air was due to construction and road dust, as per its Air Quality Decision Support system that provides quantitative information about emission sources in and around Delhi. Studies have reported that prolonged exposure to these particles can cause severe cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. As construction in India ramps up further, it is vital to regulate their impact on air quality effectively at the local and regional levels.
Bans alone will not solve this crisis. Instead of short-term restrictions, cities must adopt a standardised, year-round compliance and monitoring framework that safeguards workers' livelihoods while ensuring environmental responsibility from developers. The question is not whether construction should continue during severe air pollution days but how it can be made sustainable for workers and developers without sacrificing air quality.
Without a compliance monitoring framework, the existing rules lack impact
India has multiple laws and regulations governing construction work. For instance, the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM), under its 2021 statutory direction, mandates that all projects in the NCR on plot areas ≥ 500 sq. m must register on state-specific web portals (Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and the National Capital Territory of Delhi). These Construction and Demolition (C&D) portals enable project proponents to self-monitor their compliance with clean construction guidelines alongside making provisions for video-fencing and pollutant (PM2.5 and PM10) monitoring at sites.
While these measures provide higher data availability and streamline information for regulators and builders to undertake context-specific mitigation measures effectively, there is a crucial gap: who should use this data, and how? Even when project proponents deploy air quality monitors, enforcement remains weak, as compliance monitoring and regulatory follow-through are inconsistent.
A semi-automated alert can unlock the potential of these C&D dust portals
Standardised data formats and real-time alert systems can significantly improve compliance by enabling targeted interventions, such as identifying construction sites that fail to adhere to clean construction practices. Upgrading the C&D web portal with automated colour-coded alerts will help streamline compliance monitoring by categorising sites based on their degree of non-compliance.
For instance, if a project proponent (including contractor, property developer, builders, and others principally responsible for site operations) fails to upload particulate matter data on the portal, an automated yellow SMS alert will be sent to notify them. If more than four such yellow alerts are issued within a week, an orange alert will be triggered. Similarly, more than four orange alerts in a month will escalate to a red alert. For yellow and orange alerts, project proponents must address the issue. Upon receiving a red alert, they must submit an online "action taken" report to the respective authorities (State Pollution Control Boards) within five days. Failure to do so will trigger a purple alert, allowing authorities to order the immediate cessation of pollution-intensive activities on-site. This can eventually help grade construction sites based on non-compliance levels, enabling flying squads to prioritize inspections accordingly.
This system would assist regulators in two ways, namely, generating periodic alerts to track and build cases against frequent defaulters and optimising the allocation of resources to monitor construction sites more efficiently.
Figure 1. A schematic of the proposed alert system outlining the responsibilities of the project proponents and the regulators
Such a tiered approach provides a structured response, ensuring compliance while prioritising regulatory resources efficiently.
Figure 2: A site not sharing PM data for a month to the C&D dust portal may be subject to physical investigation and immediate cessation.
Co-benefits of such semi-automated digital alert systems
A digital alert system goes beyond enforcing compliance to transform regulatory oversight into a proactive, data-driven process:
The way forward
The solution is not to keep changing policy mandates but to standardise and ensure the effective implementation of existing strategies and regulations. A robust, year-round compliance and monitoring framework—strengthened by such an automated alert system—can help unite stakeholders to significantly reduce construction-related air pollution without disrupting livelihoods or urban development.
Arpan Patra is a Programme Associate, and Mohammed Sahbaz Ahmed is a Research Analyst at the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW). Send your comments to [email protected]
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