Air Pollution: Smoke And Mirrors

Cleaning the national capital’s air needs concerted and year-long action on all fronts since it concerns our health, our right to breathe

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This is the third in my series on Delhi-National Capital Region’s (NCR’s) air pollution emergency. I first discussed what has been done to reduce emissions till date (Down To Earth, 16-31 October).

Then I wrote on the “nature” of the crisis — why we choke in winter and why we need to do more (16-30 November). This time, I want to talk about what needs to be done with urgency and at scale befitting the crisis.

I want to write about this otherwise the smoke will be deflected off the mirrors — we will be angry, indeed outraged about the air we breathe; but we will not get our right to blue skies and clear lungs.

The bottom line is we need tough action and at scale — it must be transformative enough so that it can beat the galloping pollution. When Delhi moved to compressed natural gas (CNG), it did so within one two years.

All the public transport vehicles – over 100,000 – were converted to clean fuel. So, the drastic action, however inconvenient, showed up in our pollution figures.

We saw stars in the skies. In these past three years, critical steps have been taken – from a ban on coal usage in Delhi to moving towards cleaner fuel for vehicles and reducing gross polluting truck traffic – and it is bending the pollution curve. But it is not enough.