5 November 2019
#OddEven #DelhiSmog
If ever there was a more sardonic cabal on stage, it is yet to be mounted. Folks are out in full force, testing the patience of the sane and the simple, in New Delhi and its neighbourhood. It is again that time of year when the smog grips the NCR and the air becomes so unhealthy that every breath singes your throat, every breath literally burns your lungs!
While we chose to still have arguments about what is the cause of the cause célèbre, from Diwali fire crackers to private cars, with stubble burning in the neighbourhood states of Punjab, UP and Haryana, the din that we create when besieged by toxic fumes is sufficient to deny us any clarity of a course of action. It is we know a phenomenon that is periodic as yet, it is seasonal like a weather system over Delhi and yet it eludes us a Nation that plants its flag on the Moon, the simple steps to prevent suffering!
When air quality is so poor that it is best to avoid outdoors, why does the Deputy CM ride a bicycle to office so elegantly for cameras? When the Odd Even Scheme is announced by the local Government, why does an MP of the same region actually drive defying it? Why does the Supreme Court conduct yet another revision of this scheme of lowering the number of private cars on Delhi’s roads for this period, without ordering a finality to it when it first examined it, and how come Delhi’s issues go straight there, when once the Delhi High Court itself was able to bring about compulsory CNG, relocation of local industries in NCR and other measures to lower the pollution of the NCR? And where is the affirming and reassuring voice of the PM on this serious issue where stake holders are not just the government of the UT of Delhi, but when this time it coincided with the visit of German Chancellor, it became an international headline?
It is clear that politics has now converted every aspect of governance into a slugfest, a sort of intractable warren of holes waiting to suck out the very initiative of India. It is simply clear that proposals and solutions put up, unless owned by the BJP as an idea do not get any traction in the country, and hence, schemes of Mr Kejriwal will be opposed tooth and nail, help will not be forthcoming to make his tenure as CM Delhi worth his while and effort. This is the narrow and straight political angle to the pollution problem that now makes Delhi and by inflection India, seem ungovernable!
Consider this that when India was introducing catalytic convertors, when vehicles of public transport were ordered to embrace CNG or LPG, that there was no ‘Why us?’ Chorus, instead the litigation involved owners of public transport who expressed inability to adhere to deadlines. Still, matters were ultimately resolved over a time frame by late Shiela Dikshit government and Delhi took a green turn. The number of private cars in Delhi has gone up by 250% since the last time judicially pollution by vehicles was contested. So if the next step has to be taken, naturally it would also encompass private cars, which are still diesel or petrol run.
It is not that the Odd Even came with lesser imagination. It could have straight away exempted cars that ran on hybrid fuel, it could have created a class of electric or battery operated cars, like a scheme for Delhi’s infamous Red Line and Blue Line buses, replacing the taxis that ply on her roads with e-vehicles. Of course e-rickshaws have now become the basic transport for the last mile, but things could have been more aggressive on this front for taxi segment, like how it was for the buses. Then odd and even does not work if you are a single car owner, if your location or commute is cumbersome that using Metro or Bus is not an option. Instead of a Odd Even, simply Delhi could have reduced car presence on her roads all year round by not permitting cars with single occupant or driver plus one passenger in the rear! It would have forced pooling, and if still folks wanted to drive alone or be driven alone, then they could have been charged a tidy sum for the exemption, on an annual basis that could have been used to fund anti pollution measures elsewhere.
NCR government tries to reassure ladies to take public transport by offering free rides on metros, using marshals on buses, and you can see the insane resistance that is offered besides the motivated ridicule. Baltic states are planning to make all public transport in their countries ‘free’ to reduce vehicular pollution in the short term, and Delhi is lost in its viciousness and pettiness!
Then there is the imagine of Chathth Puja where the foamy loony Yamuna and the grey white overcast of smog present such a bleak picture for posterity. This is water and air pollution and Delhi appears to not question why the Yamuna still gets polluted so, after the upstream industries at Agra were shuttered decades ago for the preservation of the Taj Mahal! Why the national capital cannot get its act together to prevent affluents from getting a free pass to its natural drain of the Yamuna, which is today causing Delhi to divert water for drinking from link canals even as her own ground water gets polluted leaching these effluents!
Of course, it is no brainer, that we seem to not have a simple humanism that allows us to reach for the immediate and intermediate and plan for the long term. In 2020, will Delhi do any better? Will India do any better?
What should have India done when the killer smog first hit in the later part of this decade? We needed to have prevented farmers from stubble burning after the monsoons, because stubble burning not just throws up smoke but also particulate matter and its charcoal feel is what hits you when you enter Delhi just now! We needed to have schools, colleges and all optional functioning departments of our society shuttered starting from two days before Diwali for an entire fortnight. That would automatically reduce the vehicular pressure on roads. We should use monitoring to try and predict the smog and its pattern of holding before its eventual dispersal so that this calendar of forced leave is abridged to the extent possible.
We should have declared zones within the city that would be ‘no vehicle zones’ specially around her hospitals, ensure all OPD services are accessed through e-rickshaws only and we can use a mix of schemes, rather than one poorly envisaged like the Odd-Even scheme to lower vehicular presence on her roads, until we have the scheme of battery operated buses and taxis. Delhi needs to go to the next level of public transport, this time from CNG to battery operated!
If cracker ban helps, if stubble burning prevention helps, if lowering vehicular presence helps, it is not just limited to Diwali, or post monsoons or private cars alone that need involvement, it can be all through the year to save Delhi’s air. We can also see how vertical forests for Delhi’s residential areas like Rohini, Dwarka, Noida, Gazhiabad, Greater Noida mandated will alter the air quality for the NCR.
Or we can continue to wrestle in proxy for our egos and our inertia and wait till this seasonal smog becomes a permanent overhang! Then rightly shall we dumbed and dusted! Then deservedly shall we be damned!
indiarubberman.com 