Delhi’s air crisis is neither sudden nor unforeseeable. 

Yet the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change held just three meetings on Delhi’s air pollution for most of last year, according to documents obtained under the Right to Information Act.

Those meetings took place on September 16, October 10 and November 11, 2025 – the first barely weeks before the onset of peak pollution, despite the crisis following a predictable, year-after-year pattern. Among participants were representatives of various ministries, Delhi government, and agencies. A top management consulting firm as well as the PMO participated in one of the meetings.

However, RTI records seem to offer a picture of slow decision-making – at a time when the ministry was simultaneously spending money to shield its own leadership from the toxic air.

Too little, too late?

The September 16 meeting resulted in 19 decisions. But subsequent minutes suggest that a few of these faced delays.

Industrial emissions: Officials resolved to closely monitor the installation of online continuous emission monitoring systems (OCEMS) in 2,433 polluting industries. An SOP was to be finalised by September, with monitoring mechanisms in place by October 2.

There is little clarity on the subsequent progress made on the monitoring mechanism. By the November 11 meeting, however, just 179........

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