Air Pollution | Where’s the equity while proposing solutions to Delhi’s smog?

A man receives a shave from a roadside barber wearing a protective mask on a smoggy morning in New Delhi, India, November 7, 2019.

Dharmesh Shah 

It’s that time of the year when our environment gets some much-deserved attention. Like a ritual, civil society protests, news studio debates and political banter will reach a crescendo until the weather patterns shift to make way for yet another year of business as usual.

This year the smog across Indian cities hasn’t been particularly intense compared to the smog events of 2016 or 2017, however, it beats the record of 2018 which was comparatively better due to favourable weather conditions. That said, the overall situation with regards to management of emissions from anthropogenic sources remains dismally poor leading to an emergency-like situation year-on-year. Delhi’s air has been deteriorating since 2008. In other words, we’ve had enough time and there is no legitimate excuse for what Delhi is experiencing now.

Witch-hunting the poor

Treating a predictable and recurring annual phenomenon as an emergency has its own fall outs. It leads to populist, knee jerk, and unscientific solutions, and sometimes outright ridiculous suggestions, such as the yagna suggested by a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) minister from Uttar Pradesh.

However, it is interesting to witness the socio-politics behind the phenomenon.

The narrative has adopted a witch-hunt-like approach and in a way exposed the prevalent class divide. By vilifying the farmers in Punjab and Haryana, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)-led Delhi administration, and to a large extent the mainstream media, has reinforced the idea of environmental classism. While stubble burning is a major factor, is it the only problem? According to System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting And Research (SAFAR), an agency under the union ministry of earth sciences, stubble burning contributed to 35 per cent of the particulate matter pollution in Delhi-NCR. What about the remaining 65 per cent and why are debates conveniently ignoring those sources?

Therein lies the inconvenient truth. The remaining 65 per cent has an inextricable connection with model of economic growth and lifestyle that the elite choose to pursue and perhaps hold too dear to question. This includes the way we manage our waste, how we build the city, power our homes, travel to work and celebrate our festivals.

Automobile pollution

According to the Supreme Court-appointed pollution watchdog Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority, private diesel vehicles contribute to 40 per cent of the total emission load. An estimated 1.09 crore private vehicles (two and four wheeler) have been registered across Delhi-NCR in 2018-19. Around 1,400 new cars join the fleet of 3 million every day. Acknowledging the role of vehicular pollution, the National Green Tribunal sought a ban on all 15-year-old petrol vehicles and 10-year-old diesel vehicles in 2014. Dismally, just 3,196 (.079 per cent) of the 4 million vehicles have been impounded till date. On the other hand, nearly 3,000 farmers have faced stiff penalties in Punjab over the past few days.

Waste management

An estimated 40 per cent of global waste is burned openly which contributes to 29 per cent of global anthropogenic emissions of small particulates and about 10 per cent of mercury emissions. In Delhi, around 10,000 tonnes per day of mixed solid waste is disposed in open areas such as Bhalswa, Okhla and Ghazipur in blatant violation of the municipal waste management rules. Such dumps have become a permanent fire hazard due to the build-up of highly flammable methane from decomposing food waste. On  October 20, the Bhalswa landfill ‘reignited’ after remaining dormant for months, spewing toxic smoke into Delhi’s air for several days.

Making matters worse are the two waste-to-energy incinerators in Okhla and Ghazipur, purportedly aimed at tackling the waste crisis. A combination of bad technology and poor waste segregation by households have made these facilities the bane of the city. Air samples taken by the Central Pollution Control Board in and around the Okhla incinerator have revealed life threatening levels of particulates and toxic chemicals, including dioxins, which was 30-40 times above permissible limits.

Dirty power

Delhi is surrounded by several coal-fired power plants with a cumulative capacity of 13.2GW. These plants ensure an uninterrupted supply of affordable power to over 4.2 million homes, offices and 95-odd shopping malls. In June 2018, Delhi's peak energy demand was higher than Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai combined. The rise was attributed to the increased use of air-conditions by households. This convenience, mostly afforded by the rich, comes at a cost to the environment.

Indian power plants are known to be highly-polluting. The ones around Delhi emit 57 tonnes/day of particulate matter (PM), 686 tonnes/day of SO₂, and 304 tonnes/day of NOx. In 2015, the ministry of environment notified a revised set of standards aimed at mitigating such emissions, but, in a strange turn of events, soon after passing the notification, the ministry extended the effective deadline from 2017 to 2022.

Equity in solutions?

Akin to the farmer narrative, the mainstream discourse has also abandoned the idea of equity when proposing solutions to protect public health. Wearing a mask, staying indoors and skipping office only works for a certain class of people. Delhi runs on the back of its working-class population — people who keep the streets clean, drive the buses, maintain law and order, and de-clog the drains. Do such solutions work for them or rather can Delhi afford the risk of letting them stay indoors even for a day?

Solutions to the Delhi smog cannot be isolated in nature. A systems approach has to be adopted, one where synergies will have to be built between several actors. An effective policy calls for a vision that can integrate efforts and interventions across sectors mentioned above. Needless to say, public participation has to be embedded throughout. Until then, let the debates rage on.

This is the first article in a multi-part series on air pollution.

Dharmesh Shah is a Kerala-based public policy analyst. Twitter: @dshah1983.Views are personal.