Odd-even plan working: Delhi govt to Delhi HC

Blaming weather conditions for the high pollution levels in the city, Salve said the system had been introduced as an “emergency measure” as last December had not seen “a single good air quality day”.

Salve also said that the Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority or EPCA had recommended that the scheme be allowed to continue as scheduled and “may need to be extended to three weeks.”

Defending the plan, the Delhi government claimed that “intensity of smog episodes” had reduced in the city, with the 24-hour particulate matter (PM) 2.5 concentration levels in the city dropping from 448 microgram per cubic metre on December 22 to 351 on January 3. The report submitted by the EPCA did not give tabulated data but indicated trends of pollution levels via graphs.

The EPCA stated that due to the odd-even policy, even on days when there was no breeze to blow away the particulate matter, the PM levels dropped.
The report claimed that “per person” load of pollutants in the city had declined by almost 50 per cent in the past week. “This is a significant contribution of Delhiites” as vehicular pollution has dropped due to reduction in number of vehicles, it said.

The bench questioned the legitimacy of the EPCA report, noting that it had not been signed by any “responsible person”, and was “just a printout” with no information about who had collated or analysed the data.

The claims by the Delhi government were also disputed by lawyers representing the petitioners, who showed data from the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) website that indicated increased PM levels in the first week of January.

“The government is giving incorrect data… if vehicles go off the roads, obviously vehicular emissions will be reduced… but total pollution has increased,” argued advocate Rajiv Khosla.

The lawyer informed the court that the daily average pollution levels on the CPCB website showed extremely high levels of particulate matter.
“These figures are correct” said Salve, who argued that the figures “would have been much higher” if all vehicles had been allowed to ply. “We are not saying that pollution has reduced, we are saying that peaking of pollution shows a declining trend,” he said.