Delhi this winter: the plans, the dates and the money

Delhi's winter starts with a tightened emergency plan, a new set of state rules and a long programme that was due to begin in September. For each of them the page gives what it requires, what the money behind it has done so far, and where the public record is incomplete. Last checked on 19 October 2026.

What changes this winter

On 28 September the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) approved a revised Graded Response Action Plan, known as GRAP, for the National Capital Region. The Commission lists the revised schedule on its own GRAP schedule page, issued on 29 September as Direction No. 104, and the Press Information Bureau (PIB), the government's release service, published the details the same day. The schedule now has 48 actions: 25 in Stage I, 8 in Stage II, 10 in Stage III and 5 in Stage IV. The main change is that curbs on diesel generator sets and on older inter-city buses (BS-IV and below) begin in Stage I, the first and mildest stage, which applies when air is rated Poor. Before, they waited for Stage II.

Three other changes in the same release bear on enforcement. The Stage III ban on BS-III petrol and BS-IV diesel four-wheelers now covers Sonipat, alongside Gurugram, Faridabad, Ghaziabad and Gautam Buddh Nagar. The exemption for older goods vehicles carrying essential commodities is removed in Stages III and IV. And the rules on dust at building sites, which required web registration and monitoring only inside municipal limits, now reach sites outside them too. The threshold of 500 square metres is unchanged.

The same release reports how enforcement has gone. By 17 September the Commission's task force had issued closure orders to 1,831 units. Of these, 1,479 had been considered for resumption after complying, and 126 had been passed to state pollution control boards or the Delhi Pollution Control Committee. (PIB, 29 September 2026)

Delhi's own winter plan, announced by Environment Minister Manjinder Singh Sirsa on 28 September, adds state measures. Everything in the table below comes from press reports, except where a CAQM direction is named, which we have read. We have not seen the Delhi government's own orders.

CAQM directions of 2026 and when they start

Five directions issued by the Commission this year set dates that fall in or after this winter. We have read each of them (CAQM, directions).

Directions 100 and 102 apply to new registrations, so neither removes a vehicle that is already on the road. Separately, the Commission's Advisory No. 18 of 10 September, which is advice and not a direction, asks Delhi and the three neighbouring states to ensure that no physical sports competitions are scheduled in November and December, following the Supreme Court's order of 19 November 2025, and that students who miss out are not disadvantaged.

We have since read the schedule itself, and it confirms the details above. The direction issues it under Section 12 of the Commission's Act with immediate effect, and says the measures in each stage apply when that stage is invoked by order. The schedule also fixes what each stage asks of schools and offices. Stage II staggers office timings in Delhi and the districts of Gurugram, Faridabad, Ghaziabad and Gautam Buddh Nagar, and says nothing about schools. Stage III requires hybrid classes up to Class V in those five areas, leaves it to the state governments to decide on offices working at 50% strength, and asks the Centre to decide on work from home for its own staff. Stage IV extends hybrid classes to Classes VI to IX and XI, stops trucks entering Delhi other than electric, CNG, LNG and BS-VI diesel ones, and says only that state governments may consider closing colleges and non-emergency commercial activity or running odd-even. Whether a child learns online is left to the student and the guardian. The Stage I orders of April and May 2026 were issued on the day Delhi's AQI was already Poor (226 on 16 April, 208 on 19 May), each citing a forecast that it would stay there, although the schedule says stages are to be invoked ahead of the forecast.

We left out three figures that are in circulation. One outlet says the GRAP citizen charter grows from 22 to 34 measures. PIB says only that it has "additional actions", and counting the bullet points in the schedule's four charters gives 16, 9, 7 and 3, which is 35, so we do not repeat the 34. Two outlets say 150 more electric buses will take Delhi's fleet past 700, which cannot be squared with the 4,845 electric buses on JanVayu's progress page from a count on 9 July. And one outlet says the Stage III extension includes border areas of Ghaziabad, Faridabad and Gautam Buddh Nagar, which were already covered; PIB names only Sonipat as new.

On firecrackers, the Supreme Court declined a blanket ban on 1 October and indicated that green crackers may be allowed for limited hours. It said it would look at barium in crackers on 15 October (Chenab Times, Organiser). On 12 October the Court passed no directions in the Delhi-NCR case, asked CAQM to take a view on firecrackers for this Diwali, and left the existing ban in place until the next hearing on 15 October (LawBeat). As of 19 October we have found no report of what was decided on 15 October, and we have read neither order. Diwali falls on 8 November.

How many bad-air days Delhi has had

PIB's January release says 2025 had the best AQI figures since 2018, lockdown year aside. By days rated Poor or worse, 2025 (164) was worse than 2024 (157) and 2023 (159), so the two measures do not rank the years the same way. The Central Pollution Control Board publishes a daily air quality index for each city. The table counts the days each year on which Delhi's index fell in the Poor, Very Poor or Severe bands. The index reports whichever pollutant is worst on the day, so it counts bad days. It does not give the concentration of fine particles.

For the part of 2026 that has passed, the Commission for Air Quality Management published its own count on 30 September. It rates 79 days from January to September 2026 as Poor or worse (daily average AQI of 200 or more), against 86 in 2025, 86 in 2024, 80 in 2023 and 127 in 2022, and 194 days below 200 against 187, 188, 193 and 146 (CAQM press release, 30 September 2026). In each year the two counts add up to the days in nine months, which is a useful check on the release. It covers the nine cleanest months, so it says little about the winter ahead. The same release gives Delhi's average PM2.5 up to 28 September as 69 µg/m³ in 2026 and in 2025, 81 in 2024, 73 in 2023 and 80 in 2022.

The National Clean Air Programme: results and money

What the programme set out to do

The programme, launched in 2019, asked 130 cities to cut PM10 (particles under 10 micrometres across, a group that includes road dust) by up to 40% by 2025-26, measured against 2017-18, or to bring PM10 within the national standard of 60 µg/m³. That target year ended in March 2026, and two counts of how the cities did are now public.

The government's count came in a Rajya Sabha reply during the 2026 monsoon session; outlets give the date as 24 July and as 6 August. The Minister of State for Environment said that 108 of the 130 cities had lower PM10 in 2025-26 than in 2017-18, 72 of them by more than 20% and 26 by more than 40%. Fourteen cities met the national standard, against six in 2017-18 (ChiniMandi, EQ Magazine).

The Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) counted 100 cities with enough monitoring data. Of these, 23 met the 40% target and 23 saw PM10 rise (CREA, January 2026). The two counts look further apart than they are. Twenty-six of 130 is 20% of cities, and 23 of 100 is 23%. They use different sets of cities and different monitors.

Delhi's own result against its 2017-18 baseline is not in any document we could read. The figures sit on the PRANA portal, which requires a login.

Delhi's recent air has been reported three ways. The Rajya Sabha reply is said to give PM2.5 of 102 µg/m³ for 2025-26 (as reported by EQ Magazine). CREA gives 96 µg/m³ for 2025, and also a PM10 of 197 µg/m³, the highest of any city. IQAir's figure for New Delhi in 2025, which JanVayu uses on its first screen, is 82.2 µg/m³. The periods, monitors and methods differ, and we have not reconciled them.

How much of its money Delhi has spent

Four official or near-official figures exist, and they now fit together better than they first appear to. A Ministry reply published by PIB on 21 December 2023 shows Rs 38.22 crore released to Delhi for 2019-20 to 2023-24, of which Rs 10.77 crore had been used, or 28%. A Lok Sabha reply of 15 December 2025, tabulated by PRS, gives Rs 81 crore released and Rs 14 crore used for 2019-20 to 2025-26, or 17%, and the ResGov city brief that JanVayu charts on its budget page carries the same two figures (Rs 81.36 crore and Rs 14.1 crore). Delhi's own Annual Action Plan 2026, dated 10 February 2026, then reports Rs 81.34 crore received and Rs 26 crore used, or 32%.

The jump from 38 to 81 crore is a matter of dates. The plan says Rs 38.67 crore of the total arrived between August and October 2025, which leaves Rs 42.67 crore received before then, close to the Rs 38.22 crore reported to December 2023. The rise in use, from Rs 14 crore in the December reply to Rs 26 crore in the February plan, is not explained as spending. The plan's own footnote says that activities worth Rs 4 crore at the New Delhi Municipal Council are complete with payment pending, and that the Municipal Corporation of Delhi has issued a letter of intent for Rs 12 crore of procurement. Those two items sum to Rs 16 crore, so the 32% may count work that is ordered or finished and not yet paid for. The plan does not say, and it does not give the date its figures are drawn to.

One further press summary gives Rs 113 crore approved, Rs 56 crore released and Rs 30 crore used. We do not use it, because its own percentages (44% released, 24% used) do not match those rupee figures, which work out to 49.6% and 26.5%.

What replaces the Finance Commission air-quality grant

Most of the programme's money came through a grant from the Fifteenth Finance Commission to 42 cities with more than a million people. It totalled Rs 16,539 crore for 2020-21 to 2025-26 (PIB, 5 February 2024). Delhi is such a city, though we could not extract its share.

That grant period has ended. The Sixteenth Finance Commission laid its report for 2026 to 2031 before Parliament on 1 February 2026. In paragraph 10.32 it records the Environment Ministry's request to continue the air-quality grant, add Kannur, Kochi and Kollam, and include 51 cities of 5 to 10 lakh people. Its own award for local bodies, Rs 7,91,493 crore over the five years, is set out in Table 10.5. It has basic grants, performance grants, a special infrastructure component for wastewater of Rs 56,100 crore, and an urbanisation premium. In the text of Volume I, the words air, ambient, pollution and NCAP appear only in that one paragraph. So we find no air-quality award (Report, Volume I).

We did not check the report's annexures or other volumes, and we do not know whether the Union government will fund a successor outside the Commission. The 2026-27 Union Budget cut the Control of Pollution scheme, which includes the programme, to Rs 1,091 crore from Rs 1,300 crore in the revised estimates for 2025-26 (Business Today).

Targets and plans

The reduction targets for 2026

On 3 December 2025 the Union Environment Minister told civic bodies in the National Capital Region to file annual action plans for 2026 (Tribune). After a review with Delhi's Chief Minister on 12 January, PIB reported that a coordinated, target-based plan by all NCR governments is "expected to lead to a 15-20% improvement in AQI levels by the end of this year", and that 2025 had the best AQI figures since 2018 apart from the lockdown year (PIB, 12 January 2026). That is an expectation for the region, not a Delhi target with a base year.

Delhi's own plan, the Annual Action Plan 2026 for the Government of NCT of Delhi, is on the Commission for Air Quality Management's website as "Delhi State Action Plan, 2026", dated 10 February 2026 (CAQM, State Action Plans). Its air-quality table gives the annual averages for 2021 to 2025 and the 2026 goal, with a column headed "% Reduction" and the footnote "Planned reduction with respect to the average of last five years". The Hindustan Times and the Times of India repeated that wording (Hindustan Times, Times of India).

The plan prints five years for each measure. AQI was 209, 209, 204, 209 and 191 from 2021 to 2025; PM2.5 was 113, 103, 106, 110 and 99; PM10 was 221, 223, 219, 225 and 209. The last two columns are our arithmetic on those figures, and the "5-year mean" is the average of 2021 to 2025. The stated cuts reproduce almost exactly against 2021, the first year of the series, and do not reproduce against the average of the five years, which is 204.4 for AQI, 106.2 for PM2.5 and 219.4 for PM10. So the footnote and the table disagree. We read the stated percentages as measured from 2021, because only that reading matches all three, and we say so because the plan does not.

Measured from 2025, the year just ended, the goals are a 7.3% cut in AQI, 3.0% in PM2.5 and 15.3% in PM10. The same figure, 177, is the goal for both AQI and PM10, and the plan prints it twice. The same plan also lists a separate NCAP measure, "PM10: 10% reduction, PM2.5: 5% reduction", for improvement from the programme's base year. We have not found that base year stated.

Swachh Hawa, Swasth Delhi

The Chief Minister launched this seven-year programme on 3 July. It runs from September 2026 to August 2033, costs Rs 8,300 crore and covers all districts. It is described as 65% World Bank financing (about Rs 5,395 crore) and 35% from the Delhi government (about Rs 2,905 crore). It targets transport, road dust, construction and demolition waste, solid waste, industry, green cover and water pollution, and it funds a project management unit, monitoring, and an integrated command centre (The Newsmill, Daily Pioneer).

On 11 July the World Bank handed over confirmation of a project preparation grant facility, which pays for getting the project ready. The Bank's board has not approved the loan, so the 65% remains planned financing. The Bank's project database lists the Delhi Clean Air Program, Phase 1 (P517479), with the status Pipeline, a disclosure date of 3 July 2026 and board approval planned for 25 November 2026. It gives a total project cost of US$566.32 million, of which US$135 million is the Bank's indicative commitment (US$130 million from the Bank and a US$5 million grant) and US$72.33 million comes from local governments. The Bank's Initial Program Information Document of 3 July 2026 describes the Delhi Clean Air Program as a multi-phase programme over seven years, with Phase 1 financing a results-based loan and technical assistance. In that document Phase 1 cost US$320 million, half from the Bank (US$160 million) and half from Delhi. The database entry now shows US$566.32 million in total with US$135 million from the Bank, so the Bank's own figures for Phase 1 have changed since July. The reports' 65% describes the whole seven-year programme of Rs 8,300 crore. In the two Bank documents we read, we did not find that share or that total, so we treat the 65% as the Delhi government's plan and not as a Bank commitment. An earlier version of this paragraph, written on 19 October, said the database listed no project for Delhi, which was wrong. It also called the Uttar Pradesh (P178053) and Haryana (P502491) programmes still in preparation. Both entries are now marked Dropped, and the Bank's board approved the two states' programmes on 10 December 2025 under P510253 (US$299.66 million) and P510686 (US$300 million). We found no report that the programme started in September as planned. None of the reports we read gives a PM2.5 or PM10 target for the programme.

The mitigation plan announced in April

The Chief Minister announced the Delhi Air Pollution Mitigation Action Plan 2026 on 3 April. Health Policy Watch reported that the full details had not been released more than a week later. We found no document officially called DCAP. The April plan, the winter plan of 28 September and Swachh Hawa, Swasth Delhi are the nearest we can name. The table lists the dated commitments in the April plan and where each stands.

What named experts said

Health Policy Watch reported these views in April. An IIT Delhi study found that smog guns cut PM2.5 by about 8% after 24 hours, and only within roughly 100 to 200 metres on either side. Amit Bhatt of the International Council on Clean Transportation said the pollution-under-control certificate does not measure nitrogen oxides or PM2.5, and that a test on a stationary vehicle misses emissions on the road. Bhavreen Kandhari warned of weak enforcement capacity and fragmented institutions. Jyoti Pande Lavakare argued that without a full firecracker ban from October to March, winter peaks are unlikely to fall by much. The Supreme Court has since declined a total ban.

What to watch

CAQM's own list of orders shows what the emergency plan has done this year. It invoked Stage III on 16 January and Stage IV on 17 January, and revoked Stage IV on 20 January, Stage III on 22 January, Stage II on 18 February and Stage I on 16 March. It invoked Stage I again on 16 April and 19 May and revoked it on 4 May and 29 May. As of 19 October the list has no order since 29 May, so Stage I has not been invoked this autumn. The Central Pollution Control Board's 4 pm bulletin is what triggers one.

This season, day by day

From 1 October to 5 November CPCB's bulletin rated Delhi on 36 days: 4 Very Poor, 6 Poor, 23 Moderate, 3 Satisfactory. The bulletin's own figure for the day is a 24-hour reading to 4pm. Diwali falls on 8 November this year.

This season against past autumns

On 28 of the 36 days we can compare, this season's figure was below the middle of the same calendar date in the autumns of 2019 to 2025. The days at or above that middle were 1 to 7 October and 9 October. A comparison by date can differ from one that lines the years up by Diwali. Diwali is on 8 November this year, later than in several of those years, so the days before it fall in the stretch when past autumns were already close to their worst.

Lined up by Diwali

Lining the years up by Diwali, not by date, gives a different picture. Three days before Diwali, on 5 November, the bulletin gave Delhi 369. On that day in 2019 to 2025 it gave 254 to 437, and only 2023 was higher, so 2026 ranks second highest of 8. Over the five days from seven to three days before Diwali, 2026 ranked fifth, third, third, third and second highest of eight. Diwali is a gazetted holiday that moves each year, and the dates used are in the table.

About these figures. The source is CPCB's daily AQI bulletin. The bands use 2019 to 2025 only: Delhi's bulletin rested on a median of 5 stations in 2016 and 28 in 2018, against 33 to 37 from 2019 to 2025 and a median of 54 this autumn, so earlier years are left out. Seven years is a small sample. The AQI is an index of whichever pollutant scores worst, so no average is taken. A day with no bulletin is a gap and is never filled. A cell with an outline only has no bulletin yet. Diwali dates are the gazetted public holiday each year (India Briefing for 2019; the Government of India's 2020 holiday list; timeanddate.com for 2021 to 2026; central government holiday lists for 2026), and a festival night can fall a day either side of the holiday.

The year so far has been better than recent ones, by a narrower margin than the headline figure suggests. On 17 October the Delhi government said the city had had 211 days of good, satisfactory or moderate air in 2026 and compared it with 200 days in 2025 and 209 in 2024. Those comparison figures are whole years. Counted over the same dates, 1 January to 17 October, CPCB's bulletins give 210 such days in 2026, 200 in 2025, 201 in 2024 and 203 in 2023, so 2026 leads, and its lead over 2023 comes entirely from the first half of October. Most of those days were Moderate, which is above the national 24-hour standard; days within the standard number 62, fewer than the 79 of 2025. The Environment Ministry's own figures put Delhi's average PM2.5 for January to September at 69 µg/m³, level with 2025. Averaged over January to September, JanVayu's mean of CPCB's daily Delhi AQI is about 168 in 2026 against about 164 in 2025, so the better day counts do not show in the average. Our day-by-day check gives the counts.

Farm fires have been few so far. IARI's satellite count from 15 September to 6 October recorded 88 fires in Punjab, which it called the lowest for that period in seven years, and 4 in Haryana (Down To Earth, 7 October). Most of Punjab's burning usually comes later in October and in early November.

On 1 November the entry bar on vehicles below BS-VI, the construction restrictions and the goods-vehicle bar all start together. Whether any of them is enforced at the city's borders is the real test.

Two funding questions remain open. One is whether the World Bank's board approves the loan, which would turn Rs 5,395 crore from a plan into a commitment. The other is whether the Union government funds a successor to the Finance Commission air-quality grant, and what Delhi would receive.

A note on method. The GRAP details come from CAQM's own schedule and Direction No. 104, which we have read, and from its press releases and its 2026 GRAP orders, with PIB's release alongside. The money figures come from PIB, the Lok Sabha reply as tabulated by PRS, CAQM's copy of Delhi's Annual Action Plan 2026, and the Finance Commission's report. We could not open the Delhi government's own orders, and PRANA's fund tables need a login, so the state measures in the table above rest on the press reports named beside them.

Sources

• PIB, CAQM approves revised GRAP schedule (29 September 2026)
• PIB, Delhi records lowest September average AQI in five years (30 September 2026, read 19 October; January to September day counts and PM2.5 averages)
• IANS, Delhi Environment Minister on 211 good-to-moderate days (17 October 2026)
• JanVayu, Delhi's 211 days checked against CPCB's bulletins (19 October 2026)
• LawBeat, Supreme Court hearing on firecrackers (12 October 2026)
• Down To Earth, stubble-burning season begins (7 October 2026)
• CAQM, GRAP orders (read 19 October 2026)
• World Bank, projects in India (searched 19 October 2026)
• World Bank, Delhi Clean Air Program, Phase 1 (P517479) (read 3 November 2026; status Pipeline, board approval planned 25 November 2026, total project cost US$566.32 million)
• World Bank, approval of the Haryana and Uttar Pradesh clean air programmes (10 December 2025)
• CAQM, GRAP schedule revised 29 September 2026 (17 pages), with Direction No. 104 and the 2026 GRAP orders (read 6 October 2026)
• PIB, Union Environment Minister reviews Delhi's air pollution action plan (12 January 2026)
• PIB, allocation of funds to 131 cities under NCAP (21 December 2023)
• PIB, air quality grant to million plus cities (5 February 2024)
• Sixteenth Finance Commission, Report for 2026-31, Volume I
• CREA, Tracing the Hazy Air 2026 (9 January 2026)
• ChiniMandi and EQ Magazine on the Rajya Sabha reply
• Down To Earth, Delhi's 2026 winter plan for industries
• Newsgram and The Hans India on the winter plan (29 September 2026)
• Drishti IAS, Delhi's proactive framework 2026-27
• The Newsmill and Daily Pioneer on Swachh Hawa, Swasth Delhi
• Health Policy Watch, Delhi's new plan (April 2026)
• Outlook Business, Delhi-NCR targets for 2026 (9 February 2026)
• CAQM, Delhi State Action Plan, 2026 (the plan itself, 10 February 2026)
• Times of India, CAQM's clean-air target for 2026 and Hindustan Times, Delhi action plan: 15% cut in average AQI targeted in 2026
• The Tribune, MCD and clean air funds
• Business Today, Union Budget 2026 pollution control
• Central Pollution Control Board daily AQI bulletins, summarised in the bulletin table above

Related