1001 Smart Cities
🇮🇳 Surat

Particulate Emissions Trading Scheme

🤖 AI-generated summary of the sources below · 🔎 Last verified · ◆ 9 sourced claims, none individually verified yet

This overview was generated with AI from the public sources listed below and checked against them before publication. It has not had a complete human fact-check — treat it as a starting point and follow the sources.

How this atlas is made · What “last verified” means · What “source-checked” means · The full record behind this page

✎ Updated 21 Aug 2026 Publication date recorded for 5 sources. · 2 revisions in all What changed →

In June 2019 the Gujarat Pollution Control Board opened the world's first emissions trading scheme for particulate matter, in Surat's industrial belt. Each participating plant runs a continuous emissions monitoring system on its stack, the regulator caps the total mass of particulate matter the market may emit, and plants buy and sell permits to stay inside that cap. The pilot was deliberately designed as a randomised controlled trial: of 317 large coal-burning plants required to install monitoring, 162 were assigned to the market and 155 remained under the conventional command-and-control regime. Gujarat opened a second market in Ahmedabad in September 2023.

Live 📅 since 2019
Outcome🎯 Succeeded
Evidence🔬 Peer-reviewed
what does this mean?The strongest source behind this entry is an independent peer-reviewed or academic study. It grades who did the looking — not how well the project went. All four grades →
Run byGujarat Pollution Control Board
Scale🏙️ City-wide

📊 Impact

The trial was published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics in May 2025. Plants in the market cut particulate emissions by 20 to 30 per cent relative to the control group, held enough permits to cover their emissions 99 per cent of the time against at most 66 per cent compliance among control plants, and abated at 11 per cent lower cost; the authors put the benefit-cost ratio at at least 25 to 1. The measurement period ran from September 2019 to April 2021 and was interrupted by India's COVID-19 lockdown.

🎓 Lesson

The market exists only because the measurement came first: a permit is worthless without stack-level data that nobody disputes, and the same instruments that priced the emissions also produced the compliance record — which is why compliance rose rather than merely being reported as high. What the scheme does not touch is the rest of the city's air. It prices industrial stacks, not traffic, construction dust or household fuel.

🌱 EnvironmentAir qualitySensors & IoT

Sources

↗ Greenstone, Pande, Ryan & Sudarshan, Quarterly Journal of Economics (peer-reviewed)Published May 2025Volume 140, Issue 2, May 2025, pages 1003-1060, doi:10.1093/qje/qjaf009. The randomised evaluation the entry rests on: trial design (317 plants required to install monitoring, 162 assigned to the market, 155 to command-and-control), the 20-30 per cent emissions reduction, the 99 per cent versus at most 66 per cent compliance comparison, the 11 per cent lower abatement cost and the benefit-cost ratio.
↗ Institute for Climate and Sustainable Growth, University of ChicagoPublished 15 April 2025Plain-language summary by the institute of one of the authors, carrying the same figures as the paper plus the September 2019 to April 2021 measurement window and the COVID-19 interruption.
↗ Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC), on the launchPublished 15 September 2019Contemporary account of the June 2019 launch: the Gujarat Pollution Control Board as operator, continuous emissions monitoring on the stacks, and the cap-and-trade design. Written by a research partner rather than the regulator, so treated as a research-side account of the launch, not as independent evaluation.
↗ Yale Economic Growth Center, on the Ahmedabad marketPublished 5 September 2023Source for the second Gujarat market. Verbatim: 'Ahmedabad joins the city of Surat (population 7 million) as the second loc[ation]' for the scheme, implemented by the Gujarat Pollution Control Board. The entry says 'September 2023' rather than a day date because no day date was read verbatim on this page.
↗ Down To Earth (media)Published 16 April 2025Indian environmental press coverage of the published evaluation, used as a check that the figures were reported consistently outside the research partners' own channels.

📅 How old is the evidence?

Two clocks, kept apart: when this entry’s sources were published, and what has happened to its record in the atlas. Documented span: since 2019. 5 of 5 sources carry a publication date, from 15 September 2019 to May 2025.

When the sources were published

  1. Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC) · researchEnergy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC), on the launch
  2. Yale Economic Growth Center · researchYale Economic Growth Center, on the Ahmedabad market
  3. University of Chicago · researchInstitute for Climate and Sustainable Growth, University of Chicago
  4. Down To Earth · pressDown To Earth (media)
  5. Oxford University Press · researchGreenstone, Pande, Ryan & Sudarshan, Quarterly Journal of Economics (peer-reviewed)

Every source, with links ↑

What happened to this record

  1. Publication date recorded for 1 source
  2. Entered the record
  3. Sources last read
  4. Publication date recorded for 5 sources

Every revision, permanent →

Show your work What this page rests on and what it can’t tell you · all 9 claims with their sources · the forensic record

Evidence Passport · public beta 9 addressable claims, 5 source dossiers, one permanent baseline. The passport is unreviewed — an AI-assisted structural migration, not a human or expert endorsement. Every revision keeps a permanent copy under revision history.

Inspect the claims, one by one — verbatim text, sources and caveats for all 9

The text below is copied verbatim from the published record. Each claim names the source dossiers that carry it; caveats stay attached to the claim they qualify.

Claim 1 clm-54239328eaa5793f quantitative
In June 2019 the Gujarat Pollution Control Board opened the world's first emissions trading scheme for particulate matter, in Surat's industrial belt
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
EPIC's contemporary account describes the launch: 'The Western state of Gujarat has launched the world's first trading programme for particulate air pollution. The pilot, launched on World Environment Day in June this year' — World Environment Day falls on 5 June, and the article is dated September 2019. The Chicago summary of the published study names the same operator and year: 'the world's first market for particulate matter emissions, introduced by the Indian state of Gujarat in the city of Surat in 2019'.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC), on the launch
  2. Institute for Climate and Sustainable Growth, University of Chicago
Claim 2 clm-d36f0bc5804cb18f descriptive
the regulator caps the total mass of particulate matter the market may emit, and plants buy and sell permits to stay inside that cap
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
Verbatim: 'The GPCB set a cap on the total amount of particulates that could be emitted by all the plants in the market over a given compliance period. They allocated permits to treatment plants, with permits adding up to 80 percent of the cap distributed for free, in proportion to plant emissions potential, and 20 percent sold off in weekly auctions. Thereafter, treatment plants could trade permits with one [another]'.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Institute for Climate and Sustainable Growth, University of Chicago
Claim 3 clm-64a85c3fdbaadfa5 quantitative
of 317 large coal-burning plants required to install monitoring, 162 were assigned to the market and 155 remained under the conventional command-and-control regime
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
Verbatim: 'The GPCB mandated that 317 large, coal-burning plants install Continuous Emissions Monitoring Systems (CEMS)… From there, 162 of the 317 plants were brought into the market while the remaining plants were kept under the existing command-and-control regulat[ions]'. The 155 control plants are the arithmetic remainder of 317 minus 162, which the source states as 'the remaining plants' rather than as a number.
Caveat
Some press coverage of the study gives 342 plants rather than 317; the entry follows the authors' own figure.

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Institute for Climate and Sustainable Growth, University of Chicago
  2. Greenstone, Pande, Ryan & Sudarshan, Quarterly Journal of Economics (peer-reviewed)
Claim 4 clm-e1864a8ff02f4a65 quantitative
Gujarat opened a second market in Ahmedabad in September 2023
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
The Yale Economic Growth Center reports the launch of the Ahmedabad market, implemented by the same regulator: 'Ahmedabad joins the city of Surat (population 7 million) as the second loc[ation]' for the scheme.
Caveat
The month is taken from the report of the launch; no day date was read verbatim on the page, which is why the entry does not give one.

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Yale Economic Growth Center, on the Ahmedabad market
Claim 5 clm-576a3494c291f0ef quantitative
Plants in the market cut particulate emissions by 20 to 30 per cent relative to the control group
Published field
impact · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
Verbatim: 'The plants that participated in the market reduced particulate emissions by 20 to 30 percent overall, relative to plants that did not participate in the market.' The same page attributes the effect to two causes: a cap that turned out stricter than command-and-control in practice, and the regulator tightening the cap during the study.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Greenstone, Pande, Ryan & Sudarshan, Quarterly Journal of Economics (peer-reviewed)
  2. Institute for Climate and Sustainable Growth, University of Chicago
Claim 6 clm-710ede11e302f808 quantitative
held enough permits to cover their emissions 99 per cent of the time against at most 66 per cent compliance among control plants
Published field
impact · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
Verbatim: 'plants held enough permits to cover their emissions 99 percent of the time, while those plants outside of the market met their pollution limit at most 66 percent of the time'.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Greenstone, Pande, Ryan & Sudarshan, Quarterly Journal of Economics (peer-reviewed)
  2. Institute for Climate and Sustainable Growth, University of Chicago
Claim 7 clm-43d7156bf140c6b5 quantitative
abated at 11 per cent lower cost; the authors put the benefit-cost ratio at at least 25 to 1
Published field
impact · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
Verbatim: 'It cost plants that participated in the market 11 percent less to abate emissions compared to those plants under the command-and-control regulations' and 'the benefits of the market exceed its costs by at an extraordinary amount, at least 25 times'.
Caveat
The benefit-cost ratio is the authors' own estimate and depends on how they value avoided mortality; it is a modelled figure rather than an observed one.

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Greenstone, Pande, Ryan & Sudarshan, Quarterly Journal of Economics (peer-reviewed)
  2. Institute for Climate and Sustainable Growth, University of Chicago
Claim 8 clm-761aede216dfad48 quantitative
The measurement period ran from September 2019 to April 2021 and was interrupted by India's COVID-19 lockdown
Published field
impact · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
Verbatim: 'It is based on an evaluation that ran from September 2019 to April 2021, with an interruption due to a nationwide Covid-19 lockdown.'
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Institute for Climate and Sustainable Growth, University of Chicago
Claim 9 clm-dc372027b54e9042 descriptive
It prices industrial stacks, not traffic, construction dust or household fuel
Published field
lesson · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
A statement of scope rather than of effect: the market's participants are defined by the source as 'large, coal-burning plants' mandated to install stack monitoring, so no other emission source in the city is inside the cap.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Institute for Climate and Sustainable Growth, University of Chicago
  2. Greenstone, Pande, Ryan & Sudarshan, Quarterly Journal of Economics (peer-reviewed)
Forensic record — source dossiers, gaps, hashes and the exact revision this page renders

This layer records what is known about each source, what is still missing, and the exact snapshot this page is rendering. A missing date, archive or hash stays visible as missing.

unreviewed Revision 2026-08-20-source-dates-r2 effective 2026-08-20 · created 2026-08-21

Awaiting operator and domain-expert review; publication of this revision implies neither.

sha256:c9c1a7de401d5624a15242588bd516fc8e72ccb72e44bd2628a2d21628cbea62
Revision history → Permanent version link → Machine-readable record → Evidence Constitution →
9
of 9 claims mapped
5
source dossiers
4
publication dates recorded
0
archives linked
0
exact locators
0
content captures hashed

Governance facts carried by the record

Operator
Gujarat Pollution Control Board
Actor types
regional-government, research
Funding model
public
Funding description
Not recorded
Cost
Not recorded
Ownership
Not recorded
Decision rights
Not recorded
Exit conditions
Not recorded

5 source dossiers

Greenstone, Pande, Ryan & Sudarshan, Quarterly Journal of Economics (peer-reviewed) academic.oup.com · 5 linked claims

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-b9eddb70799acea5
Publisher
Name not classified · academic.oup.com
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
Not recorded
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-08-20
Dossier created
2026-08-21
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Volume 140, Issue 2, May 2025, pages 1003-1060, doi:10.1093/qje/qjaf009. The randomised evaluation the entry rests on: trial design (317 plants required to install monitoring, 162 assigned to the market, 155 to command-and-control), the 20-30 per cent emissions reduction, the 99 per cent versus at most 66 per cent compliance comparison, the 11 per cent lower abatement cost and the benefit-cost ratio.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Institute for Climate and Sustainable Growth, University of Chicago climate.uchicago.edu · 8 linked claims

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-9e49b53930ba7ae0
Publisher
Name not classified · climate.uchicago.edu
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2025-04-15
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-08-20
Dossier created
2026-08-21
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Plain-language summary by the institute of one of the authors, carrying the same figures as the paper plus the September 2019 to April 2021 measurement window and the COVID-19 interruption.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC), on the launch epic.uchicago.edu · 1 linked claim

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-0cfe69685f70fd5e
Publisher
Name not classified · epic.uchicago.edu
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2019-09-15
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-08-20
Dossier created
2026-08-21
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Contemporary account of the June 2019 launch: the Gujarat Pollution Control Board as operator, continuous emissions monitoring on the stacks, and the cap-and-trade design. Written by a research partner rather than the regulator, so treated as a research-side account of the launch, not as independent evaluation.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Yale Economic Growth Center, on the Ahmedabad market egc.yale.edu · 1 linked claim

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-132aa8f0cd27c46f
Publisher
Name not classified · egc.yale.edu
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2023-09-05
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-08-20
Dossier created
2026-08-21
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Source for the second Gujarat market. Verbatim: 'Ahmedabad joins the city of Surat (population 7 million) as the second loc[ation]' for the scheme, implemented by the Gujarat Pollution Control Board. The entry says 'September 2023' rather than a day date because no day date was read verbatim on this page.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Down To Earth (media) downtoearth.org.in · background

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-99831f27c36f4828
Publisher
Name not classified · downtoearth.org.in
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2025-04-16
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-08-20
Dossier created
2026-08-21
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Indian environmental press coverage of the published evaluation, used as a check that the figures were reported consistently outside the research partners' own channels.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Background source; no baseline claim points here
Known limits of this passport
  • Publisher names and source languages have not yet been classified; domains are recorded without guessing.
  • Existing source notes are descriptive locators, not page- or paragraph-exact citations.
  • A missing archive, publication date or content hash is shown as null rather than inferred.
  • The project-level evidence grade ranks the strongest source in the entry; it is not a truth score for every claim.

Continue exploring

Compare this project

🇮🇳 Clean Air Action Plan and Ambient Monitoring · Surat One city, two instruments: hundreds of stacks metered continuously, ambient air measured at two stations. 🇮🇳 Air Information and Response (AIR) Plan · Ahmedabad Gujarat's two markets: Surat priced industrial emissions, Ahmedabad joined in 2023 — and warns residents about the result. 🇮🇳 Delhi Smog Towers, Connaught Place & Anand Vihar · New Delhi Two answers to industrial particulates: Delhi bought machines to clean the air, Surat put a price on emitting it.

Explore the wider context

📟 A Reading Is Not a Decision🌫️ Air quality guide🏙️ Surat city profile🌱 Environment projects📖 Air quality index (AQI)📖 Low-emission zone📖 Urban sensor network
📎 Cite this project

1001 Smart Cities (2026). “Particulate Emissions Trading Scheme” — Surat, India. The Smart City Atlas. https://1001smartcities.org/projects/surat-emissions-trading/ (last verified 2026-08-20). Data: CC BY 4.0.

The underlying data is free to reuse with attribution — see the open data page.

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