The road to tackling pollution is tough but not inaccessible

A comprehensive and harmonised year-long, inter-state action plan that takes into account small and big factors that trigger pollution in the northern plains is needed to help improve air quality in the National Capital Region, experts say.

Localised measures will not help if other states do not take proper steps in tandem to address similar problems on their side, the experts explained.

Every winter, New Delhi and its neighbouring areas face an air pollution emergency. There are many triggers – firecrackers, stubble burning by farmers, vehicular pollution, the burning of biomass, waste and solid fuel, industrial emissions and dust from construction sites, roads and degraded land.

While many of these factors exist even in summer, unfavourable weather conditions in winter make matters worse. Falling temperatures and moisture in the air trap pollutants and slow wind speeds make their dispersal difficult.

The result: a toxic haze of ultra-fine and extremely hazardous particulate matter that engulfs the region for two-three months.

Every October, the hue and cry starts over pollution – widespread media coverage, a political and inter-state blame game over farm fires, bursting of firecrackers despite a ban, a wave of pollution and, finally, waiting for the weather gods to rescue us.

After the farm fires die down by November-end, the issue gets diluted. Around February-March, when the sky gets clearer, everything is often forgotten till the next pollution season.

Policies have been announced off and on by the Centre and many steps have been taken by the state governments concerned, including Delhi, which is at the centre of all the action.

The 22-year-old Supreme Court-appointed Environment Pollution (Prevention & Control) Authority (EPCA) was dissolved to form the statutory Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM), which now oversees and implements decisions related to pollution in the NCR and adjoining areas.

A graded response action plan (GRAP) is in place to take emergency measures depending on how the air quality deteriorates. The steps include a ban on diesel generators in the NCR, an alternate-day road rationing policy for cars, a ban on construction, closure of brick kilns, stone crushers and hot-mix plants, and sprinkling of water, depending on the level of air pollution.

Still, nothing seems to be effective and we are back to square one every year.

Stronger action

So, where are we going wrong? Is there a lack of seriousness in enforcing the measures? Is there a need to have a fresh look at the solutions? Is there a way out of the mess?

Anumita Roy Chowdhury, executive director, research and advocacy, at the Centre for Science and Environment, said there is a long way to go. At present, most of the action takes place during winters, when pollution peaks, and what is needed is deeper action around the year to reduce pollution across sectors.

“A cleaner winter and sustained air quality gains require round-the-year multi-sectoral action to fix the gaps in infrastructure and systems. Trapping of pollutants due to adverse atmospheric conditions during winter can be controlled only if the overall pollution level is reduced. Emergency action during winter can only help to shave off the peak pollution by not adding more (to the mess) when the pollutants are already trapped with no wind to blow it away,” she said.

According to Roy Chowdhury, it would be unfair to say that nothing is working. She said the Delhi government has taken more steps than other cities in the region to stabilise and bend the pollution curve, but more aggressive action is needed to reduce particulate pollution by about 58 percent in order to meet clean air standards.

Among other big steps, Delhi has shifted big polluting industries out of the city, shut down coal-based power plants, banned the use of dirty fuels in all sectors, phased out most old vehicles, moved public transport and local commercial transport to natural gas, and restricted the entry of polluting trucks.

“A lot more is needed to scale up an integrated public transport system to restrain the use of personal vehicles, strengthen municipal infrastructure for source segregation and recycling of waste, eliminate dirty fuels from all industrial units and households in the city, and design streets and green-walling to control dust,” she said.

Electrification of cabs, delivery fleets and mass public transport such as buses will go a long way in reducing the use of fossil fuels, Chowdhury explained.

“It needs to meet its EV target to push the transition to cleaner energy,” she said. Delhi wants 25 percent of total vehicle registrations to be electric vehicles by 2024.

States together

Experts also lay emphasis on a regional action plan covering Delhi, adjoining NCR cities and the entire northern Indo-Gangetic plain that bear the brunt of pollution and are a source of pollutants as well.

Central Pollution Control Board data released this week showed that cities such as Agra and West UP districts such as Baghpat, Greater Noida, Ghaziabad and Meerut recorded ‘severe’ air quality.

Uttar Pradesh also contributes to stubble burning, although Punjab usually tops the chart, followed by Haryana. Stubble burning every winter pushes up the pollution index. Incentives to farmers and the threat of penal action haven’t been able to assuage the situation.

Delhi’s pollution cannot be dealt with in isolation as the polluting sources from nearby have to be taken into account and controlled to find an overall effective solution, said Chandra Bhushan, CEO of the International Forum for Environment, Sustainability and Technology.

“Delhi is a fraction of the larger NCR region. So you cannot have a polluting NCR region and a clean Delhi,” Bhushan said. He stressed the need for larger action on the ground rather than token measures such as sprinkling of water and setting up of smog towers.

Lack of coordination between multiple agencies and political differences between state governments have hindered the implementation and enforcement of anti-pollution measures as there was no overarching authority to oversee all the action on the ground.

These factors were kept in mind while forming the CAQM with the aim of bringing all monitoring bodies on one platform so that air quality management is done efficiently and in a time-bound manner. The Centre also felt that the EPCA, which did not have penal provisions, had become ineffective.

Roy Chowdhury agreed on the need for a unified plan. While Delhi’s own action has to be more stringent across sectors, action will have to be scaled up across the NCR and beyond to minimise regional influences on air quality, she said.

“We need to urgently harmonise stringent multi-sector action across the region including rural sources. India will have to adopt a regional framework for air quality management to make different state governments accountable for meeting clean air targets within the airshed,” Roy Chowdhury said.

Health hazard

This year, an extended rainy season and high winds ensured a clean October in the NCR compared to previous years. A delayed harvest pushed back stubble burning, which delayed the onset of the pollution season.

However, the scene changed in November, when farm fires rose. The bursting of firecrackers on Diwali (November 4) did not help and the air quality index (AQI) breached the severe zone in Delhi and adjoining cities.

An AQI of 51-100 is considered satisfactory, 101-200 moderate, 201-300 poor, 301-400 very poor, and anything above 401 severe.

The ultra-fine inhalable PM 2.5 pollutants in the air are capable of infiltrating the bloodstream through the respiratory system and can cause asthma and other respiratory problems, lung cancer, heart disease and other fatal ailments.

A recent survey by LocalCircles, a community social media platform, showed that four in five families in the region have someone facing one or more ailments due to contaminated air. The survey showed that 91 percent of Delhiites believe the authorities were completely or partially ineffective in enforcing the ban on transportation, distribution and sale of crackers this Diwali.

The survey received over 34,000 responses from residents of Delhi, Gurugram, Noida, Ghaziabad and Faridabad.

Biomass, solid fuel and dust

Bhushan said the diagnosis of the problem itself is not correct. He said there is too much focus on automobiles while the graver problems of biomass and waste burning as well as land degradation get ignored.

At a pan-India level, Bhushan explained, at least 85 percent of the air pollution is triggered by the burning of coal, biomass and garbage, and less than 15 percent by petroleum products. In 2019, 1,830 million tonnes of fossil fuels and biomass were burnt across the country to meet energy needs. Plus, 100 million tonnes of farm waste and 15 million tonnes of garbage were burnt, which triggered smoke pollution, he explained.

“The use of wood, coal, and biomass to meet our energy needs… needs to be addressed on an urgent basis. Tackling vehicular pollution alone will not help. Addressing all this requires political will and time. There is no shortcut to tackle this burning issue,” he said.

He pointed to another pollution generator: dust from open construction sites, roadsides and degraded land and desertification.

Roy Chowdhury agreed that the regional view has to take into account all sources of pollution.

“We need a clean energy transition in households in NCR and switch to electricity, LPG, etc, in place of firewood stoves,” she said.

Controlling dust pollution, Roy Chowdhury agreed, is a challenge.

“We need a policy of soil stabilisation, to prevent denudation and to protect the Aravallis, which play a key role in checking the movement of sand and dust from the Thar desert to NCR, Haryana and western UP,” she said.