Opinion The ‘patakha police’ won’t solve Delhi’s pollution problem

Here it is again, a grey haze lingering after the Diwali celebrations as pollution levels spike to set a depressing new record for the festive season. With PM2.5 and PM10 concentrations 15 to 20 times higher than the permissible limits in some locations, air quality in Delhi-NCR dipped to a three-year low for Diwali night. The Supreme Court allowing government-approved “green crackers” on a “test case basis” is being said to have contributed to the toxic air — but this glib framing of the issue is part of the problem. It focuses on the easy quick-fix, provides unending grist for a polarising politics, counter-productively pits clean air against religion. Hidden in plain sight, the crisis is this: Delhi-NCR’s air is so bad all through the year that a few days of celebration are all it takes to turn it toxic.

The reluctance to address the problem of a high baseline pollution load is only matched by the alacrity with which slap-dash measures are resorted to. Public blame-games ensure that the focus shifts from what is necessary to whatever is politically expedient. For example, unpaved roads, potholes and broken footpaths and garbage disposal are significant — and year-round — sources of pollution. Addressing these, as a study published last year by a team of researchers at IIT Delhi shows, can reduce the concentration of PM2.5 by over 20 per cent. Yet, successive Delhi governments have ignored these. Or consider the invariably last-minute and knee-jerk attempts to villainise the farmer for burning of crop residue. This is an annual phenomenon which requires sustained efforts, nudges and incentives that can help the practice taper off long before smoke darkens the air in November. Take, also, the self-defeating vacillation and rollback on measures such as the fuel ban on end-of-life vehicles by the Centre’s Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM). They are evidence of how piecemeal or blunt solutions, in an erratic approach, take the place of sustained and purposive engagement with the problem.

Advertisement

In the last instance, the court order and government diktat can only go so far, when larger questions of the nature of urbanisation and lifestyle changes remain unaddressed. The patakha police, in other words, won’t solve a problem that sprawls well beyond the few days on which Diwali is celebrated. The needle may have moved somewhat as far as emergency measures, including the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP), are concerned, but these too are not enough to alleviate Delhi’s misery. That can only happen by raising awareness about the complex causes of air pollution, investing in better monitoring, efficient public transportation and enabling behavioural changes, starting from school – many schools, connecting the dots between pollution and child labour, have helped frame the issue for students, showing heartening results. Measures to clean the air must start long before it starts to choke people, and must continue long after it has seemingly cleared up.