Air pollution: No lessons learnt
Crop burning hasn’t stopped, and neither will Diwali crackers
As winter approaches, northern Indian cities like Delhi stand at the brink of yet another smog and pollution-filled season. Last year, the situation had become so bad that schools had to be closed, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal had recommended that people work from home to avoid going out, the coal-fired Badarpur power plant had to be shut down for 10 days, and the government pondered a scheme to create artificial rain through cloud seeding to reduce the amount of particulate matter in the air. The CM even described the city as a ‘gas chamber’.
One of the big culprits blamed for last year’s terrible air quality was burning of agricultural stubble in Haryana and Punjab. Millions of tonnes of stubble is burnt by farmers just before winter, and this, coupled with the already terrible conditions in Delhi, makes the situation much worse. This year, in spite of a National Green Tribunal (NGT) order banning stubble burning, over a dozen cases of crop burning had already been reported from Haryana. The coming of Diwali is not going to help the situation either. With citizens abdicating responsibility by bursting crackers, the air pollution levels will invariably spike around the festival. There are lessons to be learnt from China, another country with an air pollution problem so bad that the government has had to declare ‘war’ on it. After the disastrous ‘airpocalypse’ in 2011-2012, the Chinese government created a national air pollution plan, at the heart of which was a drastic reduction in coal use in metropolitan cities. Strict emission norms for vehicles, ‘red alerts’ issued for dangerous pollution levels, and empowered and decentralised pollution control authorities have also helped put in place a long-term solution based approach.
Given that the governments of three states in India are still scrambling for solutions this year, and no coherent norms have been put in place yet, it appears as though we have learnt nothing from our experience last year. This does not bode well for the city or its citizens. Nothing short of a mammoth effort that includes awareness and mitigation campaigns can help the city or its citizens in the coming winter months.