SOLUTIONS FOR POLLUTION THAT FLOP EVERY YEAR

Post-Diwali, Delhi’s familiar smog crisis returns, sparking outrage and political blames. But, well-intentioned court orders and policy measures have failed to clean the air. It’s not too difficult to decipher what is lacking, says PRABHAT SHUKLA

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The government calls effective solutions. He says, “The PUC certificate directive, for example, also does not work.

At PUC stations, you do not even have to start the engine of your vehicle to let the executive record its emission reading. They just take a photo and issue the certificate.”

Kumar also makes the important point, which makes implementation of any measure impractical, that among all sources of Delhi's pollution “only 50 per cent is from local sources, the remaining coming from the neighbouring NCR towns”.

Increasingly, evidence is mounting that any gain the capital may obtain out of the policy push for greener vehicles is offset by a voluminous increase in the absolute number of vehicles that ply through the city. This situation can be compared to the composition of the national energy basket, where India has made impressive gains in adding the renewable component in the last decade but it continues to be one of the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases on account of the absolute consumption of fossil fuels rising every year.

As Gufran Beig, chair professor at National Institute of Advanced Studies and founder-director of SAFAR, notes: “The growth in the absolute number of vehicles is quite high. The progress made by the introduction of electric and cleaner vehicles is being nullified by the growth in the number of vehicles. Road infrastructure in the city has also not kept pace with the increase in vehicular volume. So, traffic jams have increased.”