India, Jan. 23 -- The Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) submitted its long-term pollution strategy to the Supreme Court on Wednesday, weeks after the bench criticised the body responsible for air quality in the NCR for "failing in its duty" and appearing to be "in no hurry" to identify causes or solutions. The court has directed states to implement the document and submit action plans within four weeks. The submission matters beyond this winter's severe pollution - it represents the first major test of an agency created in 2021 with expanded statutory powers specifically designed to overcome the jurisdictional fragmentation that stymied its predecessor. CAQM replaced the Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority, or EPCA, which had until then been the main agency regulating activity to mitigate air pollution. Wednesday's submission represents CAQM's first long-term strategy as a body with powers transcending state boundaries. But this is not the first time a long-term roadmap to fix the air pollution crisis - a problem that has plagued the Capital for over a decade - has been proposed. EPCA had in 2018 drawn up a similar plan. And a close comparison between the two documents, prepared eight years apart, does not inspire confidence. Start with public transport. In 1998, the Supreme Court directed Delhi to operate 10,000 buses. EPCA reinforced this in 2018 and asked the city to ensure "total compliance" by December that year. Current estimates suggest Delhi operates fewer than 6,000 buses. CAQM now proposes "augmentation of city public bus service through E-buses/CNG as per model yardsticks and service level benchmark" - no numbers, no deadline. Traffic management follows the same script. EPCA's 2018 plan mandated the deployment of an integrated traffic management system across Delhi and major NCR cities. Eight years later, CAQM has repeated the same recommendation, almost verbatim. The parking policy that was to be finalised by year-end 2018 returns as "implementing parking area management plans" with the deadline scrubbed. In fact, more than two-thirds of the latest plan is identical to its 2018 predecessor. This plan arrives over a decade into Delhi's pollution emergency. The pollution sources it identifies remain unchanged since 2015. This reality reveals a portrait of governance that cannot - or will not - solve the problems it was designed to address. For a country that positions itself as a rising global power, the inability to give hundreds of millions of people breathable air is simply unacceptable....