CLEAN AIR BY GOVERNANCE, NOT SOCIAL MEDIA OPTICS

BRINGING down pollution levels in Delhi was never going to be easy.

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Yet the Rekha Gupta government, perhaps under sustained pressure from social media "bullying" by the ousted Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), chose to take on the challenge of cleaning the capital's air within less than a year of assuming office. Such ambition may sound reassuring, but air pollution is not a problem that lends itself to quick fixes or political timelines.

Delhi's deteriorating civic environment, including its toxic air, is the aggregate outcome of policy neglect over the past decade. The AAP government focused overwhelmingly on electoral populism, pitching "freebies" as governance, while ignoring the critical tasks of urban management. When scarce public funds are diverted towards sustaining electoral subsidies rather than strengthening municipal infrastructure, environmental regulation and enforcement inevitably suffer.