India, Nov. 25 -- The Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) revising the Graded Response Action Plan (Grap) system for the NCR - moving key measures that kicked in under Grap 4 to Grap3 - to tackle the worsening pollution is a welcome step. Pollution in the national Capital and abutting cities is a legacy issue and can be resolved only by adapting a scientific approach and working out a long-term plan.

The first step is to acknowledge the problem with all its accompanying headaches. To that end, the Delhi government must improve the quality of pollution data so that plans and measures can be tweaked according to the seriousness of the situation. There have been several questions over the integrity of the pollution data, which is n...