A-PAG (Air Pollution Action Group)

A-PAG was founded in 2019 in Delhi by Ashish Dhawan (Founder and Chairperson, Ashoka University and Central Square Foundation), Vijay Chadda (former CEO, Bharti Foundation), and Mohit Beotra (former Chief Brand Officer, Airtel). Unlike broader environmental organisations, A-PAG works exclusively on air pollution, with an initial focus on the Indo-Gangetic Plain, the region facing India's most acute air quality crisis, and has since expanded to additional states. A-PAG's core theory of change is that air pollution won't improve without stronger government implementation capacity and greater political will. Rather than running its own on-ground abatement projects, A-PAG embeds itself inside government systems (Centre, State, and municipal), supporting them, on a pro-bono basis, to design, implement, and enforce pollution control measures. Its work is sector-agnostic, covering all five sources of pollution: dust, industrial, domestic, biomass, and vehicular.

Major Areas of Work

• Programme Implementation Support: Deploying dedicated Project Management Units (PMUs) inside Central, State, and municipal government bodies to help them actually enforce and execute pollution-control initiatives, not just plan them.

• Knowledge Resource Creation: Building toolkits, dashboards, and training resources (like the Sensitisation Toolkit and Clean Air Project Dashboard) that governments, intermediaries, and other civil society organisations can use directly.

• Policy Research & Advocacy: Supporting executive and legislative decision-making so that air pollution gets sustained political attention and prioritisation.

• Citizen Engagement: Running public campaigns, such as #pollutionkakyaplanhai, to raise pollution's profile as a political and civic issue, not just a technical one.

Major Initiatives & Programmes

• Dispersed Sources of Pollution (DSP) Programme: A-PAG's flagship initiative, tackling dust and garbage-related pollution, currently running in 10 cities across 4 states, in close partnership with Urban Local Bodies like the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD).

• National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) Support: Assisting the Central Pollution Control Board in implementing India's flagship national programme, which targets a 20-30% reduction in PM 2.5 pollution.

• Punjab Stubble Burning Intervention: Since 2020, working with the Punjab Agriculture Department to shift farmers from stubble burning to tractor-based alternatives, one of A-PAG's earliest and longest-running projects.

• Bihar (Patna, Muzaffarpur, Gaya): Partnering with the Bihar State Pollution Control Board (BSPCB) and TERI to resolve dispersed pollution sources and decongest traffic hotspots.

• Uttar Pradesh: Retained by the UP Pollution Control Board (UPPCB), running DSP programmes in Ghaziabad, Varanasi, Mathura-Vrindavan, Prayagraj, and a unique smart-city-linked model in Lucknow.

Impact

• Over 190,000 dispersed pollution issues identified in Delhi as of December 2023, with 89.5%, about 170,000, resolved idreamcareer

• Over 70% of 15,000 identified issues resolved across Patna, Muzaffarpur, and Gaya as of July 2023

• Active government partnerships across 12+ states and union territories

• Selected as one of 10 non-profit partners in the Harish and Bina Shah Foundation's 3-year strategic grant-making cohort (via Sattva), spanning education, livelihood, health, legal aid, and air quality

• All support to government delivered on a pro-bono basis, reflecting a policy-influence model rather than a service-delivery one

A-PAG suits people who want their work to shape actual government policy and enforcement, not just raise awareness. Because A-PAG embeds directly inside government bodies through PMUs, people get rare, close access to senior officials and real decision-making processes rather than working at arm's length from them. It also appeals to people who like measurable, ground-level problem solving (tracking and resolving tens of thousands of specific pollution sources) within a clear, focused mandate rather than a broad, diffuse environmental mission.

A-PAG suits people passionate specifically about air quality and public health who want to work closely with government systems, combining policy fluency with the patience to drive slow, structural change on the ground.