OPINION | Why Delhi’s air quality is more about politics than a lungful of non-toxic air

A view of the Akshardham Temple shrouded in smog amid deteriorating air quality across Delhi-NCR. (Source: PTI Photo)

Delhi awoke to its grim post-Diwali rite on October 21, 2025: a suffocating shroud, with average PM2.5 levels rocketing to 488 micrograms per cubic meter—nearly 100 times WHO limits and a staggering 212% surge from the pre-festive 156.6. Diwali night (October 20) peaked at 675 for PM2.5, pushing AQI into "severe" territory (400+ in hotspots), outstripping 2024's 328, 2023's 218, and 2022's 312 for the worst reading in five years.

By October 22, it festered at around 350 ("very poor"), per CPCB and IQAir—still lethal, trapping particulates in stagnant air. The playbook is etched in smog: haze engulfs the capital, politicians hawk wild theories (Pakistan plots? Punjab pyres?), experts churn clips, activists besiege briefings, and X with toxic tableaux. Youth drop dystopian memes, and GRAP Stage II activates—odd-even roads and construction halts—till breezes begrudgingly banish the blight. Then it's likely the apex court will intervene and pull up the authorities like every year, and then everyone will go back to business as usual.

“Green crackers” aren’t the issue

But here's the rub: Delhiites are numb to it. Seniors, kids, and asthmatics hunker indoors; the affluent fire up purifiers, and the rest wheeze through. This isn't just fatigue—it's fatalism.

This year, "green crackers" (that eco-oxymoron, only 30% cleaner) were greenlit by the Supreme Court, yet post-festive AQI climbed a mere 11 points to 356—same sludge. Fireworks? Sure, they spike PM by 30%, but they're scapegoats for deeper sins.

Delhi’s not alone, it’s an NCR issue

The first myth to bust: this isn’t Delhi’s solo dirge—it’s an NCR symphony. On Diwali morning, Noida, Ghaziabad, and Faridabad all wheezed at an AQI of 412, Gurgaon trailed close at 402—every city branded “severe.” The smog is now a regional refrain, not a capital city tragedy. Ironically, even as crop burning in Punjab and Haryana reportedly dipped 77% this October, the haze only thickened. That statistic alone demolishes the convenient villain narrative.

Vehicles, factories, and dust—Delhi-NCR’s unholy trinity—spew poison through the year.

The real scandal is not in the numbers, but in the response.

Green Crackers: A misguided compromise

Green cracker is an oxymoron. The CSIR-NEERI's 2018 brainchild, tweak fireworks with smaller shells, barium-free formulas, and dust-trapping zeolite—cutting PM, sulfur, and NOx by 30-40%, noise to 125 dB. SWAS and STAR variants promise cleaner pops.

Lab tests tout gains, but IIT Bombay and DTU studies expose the catch: ultrafine particles (deadlier than PM2.5) spike wildly during mass Diwali bursts, negating benefits.

Why then did the apex court permit timed sales and bursts for Diwali 2025? Culture and religion: Lakshmi Puja's ritual lamps and sparklers symbolize prosperity and evil's triumph—sacred, unassailable. Devotees argue denial wounds faith as much as smog wounds lungs.

Can ritual afford to amplify ultrafines invading kids' alveoli and elders' arteries?

Implementation failures show absence of political will

Every Diwali, Delhi’s air turns poisonous—and every year the government at all levels stages the same theatre of blame. The supposed firecracker ban and Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) exist more on paper than on the ground. It is worth noting that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) controls the Centre and the municipal corporation of Delhi and exerts influence over the police in the national capital region—yet enforcement remains a farce.

Implementation of such policies cannot happen overnight. But when the same violations recur year after year, it raises a larger question of intent. If the so-called “triple-engine” government truly functioned in coordination, Delhi’s winter smog would not feel inevitable.

To its credit, Punjab has recorded a near-fourfold drop in stubble-burning incidents over the period from 15 September to 21 October 2025: just 415 cases compared with 1,510 in the same period in 2024 and 1,764 in 2023.  Yet despite this dramatic fall, Delhi’s air quality still collapsed to dangerously high levels after Diwali.

The message is stark: even if one source is brought under control, the system still fails because other sources like firecrackers, vehicles, industry, and dust—remain unchecked.

Optics over real action

Delhi's smog crisis thrives more on political spectacle than substantive strategy. AAP's Arvind Kejriwal exemplified this with the 2016 odd-even scheme, restricting cars by license plate numbers to curb emissions.

He hailed it as a breakthrough, but IIT Kanpur and University of Chicago studies revealed modest gains—a mere 5-16% PM2.5 drop during winter trials, erased by seasonal stubble fires.

Kejriwal then championed Pusa Institute's bio-decomposer, a microbial spray to neutralize crop residue. Tested in Delhi's tiny farmland patch, it became a national cure-all. AAP poured ₹23 crore into promotions over two years—dwarfing the ₹68 lakh spent on actual application—while Kejriwal lambasted Punjab's Congress chief ministers, Amarinder Singh and Charanjit Singh Channi, for inaction.

In AAP-ruled Punjab, the 2022 rollout flopped: stubble fires persisted unabated.

The ₹20 crore Connaught Place smog tower, unveiled with fanfare in 2021, fared worse. This 24-meter filtration giant ground to a halt within months. The Supreme Court intervened in 2023, ordering repairs after it lay dormant.

When BJP occupied opposition benches, it pilloried AAP for deflecting blame to Punjab and Haryana. Now in power, BJP recycles the same script. This endless blame game—odd-even gimmicks, ad-drenched pilots, rusting towers—masks the void: no NCR-wide EV mandates, no year-round enforcement.

Year-Round Policy: The missing mandate

Every winter, Delhi turns into a gas chamber—and every spring, the outrage fades. Studies from TERI to the World Bank have long said it: clean air is achievable, but only with year-round governance, not seasonal panic.

Delhi’s smog is no accident; it is the product of mismanagement meeting meteorology. Winter’s windless inversions trap the toxins, but the culprits—construction dust, waste burning, landfill fires at Bhalswa and Okhla, unchecked industrial emissions, and ever-increasing vehicles—remain active all year.

Court caught it early but to no avail

The Supreme Court recognized the crisis early. In 1998, it created the Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority (EPCA), led by Bhure Lal, which produced the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP)—still the city’s pollution playbook.

In 2020, the body was replaced by the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) with broader powers. Yet, every year, the Court merely reprimands governments and criticizes officials without issuing a binding roadmap. Its shifting orders—sometimes banning firecrackers, sometimes permitting “green” ones—generate headlines but little change.

An action plan with a difference

# What Delhi needs is a permanent, enforceable plan. CAQM must be empowered to act, not advise, with quarterly NCR-wide audits and emission targets.

# Public buses and autos should be fully electric by 2030, with old diesel vehicles scrapped under real-time monitoring. Construction activity must follow dust-control rules year-round—using sprinklers, barricades, and mechanical sweepers—enforced by municipal bodies and the police.

# Landfill pollution needs a measurable elimination roadmap, with segregation at source and investment in compliant waste-to-energy plants.

# Road dust and vehicular emissions must be addressed through more bus fleets, decongested terminals, and clean-fuel corridors.

# For stubble burning, collaboration—not punishment—is key; farmers need incentives and access to alternatives like bio-decomposers and Happy Seeders.

Finally, the Supreme Court and CAQM must create a ten-year vision with deadlines, penalties, and annual public audits. Delhi doesn’t need another season of reprimands—it needs resolve. Mandate the mandate, or let the capital choke in repetition.