Delhi’s Pollution Woes

That New Delhi is the most polluted capital in the world is well-known. Delhi is much more polluted than Beijing ever was. In the middle of November, Delhi’s air quality index (AQI) was around 1,700. At the worst point of Beijing’s pollution crisis, the highest the AQI reached was 1,300. The maximum AQI deemed healthy by the World Health Organization is 50.

The toxic smog engulfing Delhi was visible from space as satellite images captured the Indian national capital’s “severe” air pollution crisis continuing for two consecutive days. Schools had to shut down.

The Indian government cannot deal with this issue the way the Chinese government did. Closing down factories en masse and stopping other pollution causing activities with a single diktak isn’t easy in democratic India. Also, the state government of Delhi is constantly at loggerheads with the Indian federal government and co-operation and coordination between Centre and State is something that is definitely missing. Each blames the other for Delhi’s woes.

This year, as Diwali popped up in the last week of October, once again the debate renewed about the use of firecrackers. Unlike other religious festivals, Diwali is essentially about light and lamps, and fireworks are seen are one of the ways of showing how light displaces darkness, in the manner of good displacing evil. The state government of Delhi did ban the production and sale of fireworks, but most people ignored the ban and burst firecrackers as if their lives depended on it. The AQI went through the roof and those with pets struggled to calm the distressed animals.

One of the main reasons for the smog and pollution in Delhi is due to stubble burning by the farmers of Punjab and Haryana. Farmers have only a short turnaround between harvesting their rice crops and planting wheat and the quickest and cheapest way to prepare the fields is to burn the stubble. The wind blows the polluting smoke from these fires from the fields of Punjab and Haryana over into Delhi, where, due to the meteorological conditions, it often hangs over the city in a thick cloud. Pakistan, which also suffers from smog and pollution, has also blamed stubble burning by farmers in Punjab and Haryana for its pollution woes.

Stubble-burning is not the only cause of pollution in Delhi. It also comes from the transportation sector and the millions of cars on the roads, from coal-burning power plants, from the burning of waste in Delhi’s landfills, from the non-stop construction of highways and flyovers.

A recent study calculated that the 30 million people living in and around the capital could have almost 12 years taken off their lives due to its catastrophic health impacts.

There is no easy solution to the problem facing Delhi and large parts of north India. The causes for this have already been identified. The government needs to persuade large sections of society to put up with some pain (in the form of loss of income) as it implements solutions to this crisis. Adequate compensation has to be paid to those who find it difficult to bear the pain, though it is clear that full compensation to everyone may not be possible.