Mohit Kumar
Political Science
July 2025
Climate change represents a significant and complex issue for urban sustainability. The projected increase in megacities will strain cities such as Delhi facing extreme environmental stressors such as health-threatening air pollution, acute water scarcity, and intensifying urban heat island effect conditions - a situation exacerbated by rapid, uncontrolled urbanisation, social inequity, and weak institutions. This study critically evaluates the challenge of climate change in Delhi, focusing explicitly on the scope, structure, and efficacy of the responses of government policy. It evaluates broad national and state-scale frameworks, including the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) and Delhi State Action Plan on Climate Change (SAPCC), in addition to a number of sector-specific interventions such as the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP), the Delhi Electric Vehicle Policy (2020), and the Yamuna River rejuvenation initiatives. Using qualitative analysis based on secondary data and study of policy documents, this paper assesses the major obstacles to implementation, including fragmentation of institutions, inadequacies of resources, and limited public engagement. While Delhi's policy architecture shows a strong correlation to advance national goals, the gap between top-down policy development and implementation on-the-ground is a real challenge. The study presents policy recommendations which stress the importance and need for integrated governance systems, participatory planning, infrastructure investment, and sustained behaviour change
240- 249
© Airo Journals 2021
