Maut ka zehar hai hawaon mein,
Ab kahan ja kay saans li jaaye?
(The air is filled with deadly poison,
Where can I go to breathe?)
When late maestro Jagjit Singh lent his golden voice to this intense ghazal by poet Rahat Indori, very few must have imagined how prophetic the verses would become just two decades later. Especially in Delhi. And especially during the winters, when the national capital turns into a post-apocalyptic world—a dark, sombre land where the sun does not shine during the day and the stars are always hidden behind a black shroud of toxic smog.
Over the past two decades, as the problem of pollution gradually intensified in the national capital, there were several half-hearted policy measures undertaken to ensure clean air to the city inhabitants. One such radical initiative was taken in 2001 when Delhi’s public transport switched to CNG. The government has been planting smog towers for the past few years now. But such efforts appear as if someone is beating the wind—pointless. The monster of pollution crisis keeps growing right under the nose of Parliament and all the government bodies which are expected to check pollution.
Some 1.67 million Indians died due to air pollution in 2019, according to a report by the interdisciplinary journal Lancet Planetary Health. The report ‘The India State-Level Disease Burden Initiative’, released on December 21, 2020, estimated overall health and economic impacts of air pollution, claiming that the toll in India was 18 per cent of the total deaths in the country. In 2015, a study conducted by the Central Pollution Control Board and Calcutta-based Chittaranjan National Cancer Research Centre found that every third child in Delhi had reduced lung function because of air pollution.
On the afternoon of November 2, Delhi experienced a light drizzle. And incidentally, the apex court gave a 24-hour ultimatum to the Centre, the governments of National Capital Territory of Delhi, and the states of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Punjab to file affidavits showing their compliance with the directions issued by the Commission for Air Quality Management in National Capital Region (NCR) and adjoining areas.
Aditya Dubey, 18, took a deep breath at his home in Noida. A bench headed by Chief Justice N.V. Ramana was reacting to a petition that Dubey had filed in September last year, invoking his right to breathe clean air. Dubey, who has been experiencing respiratory problems since he was 13, commented on the growing crisis, “If we are facing so many problems while sitting at home with masks and air purifiers, can you imagine the sufferings of the people living on the streets, who don’t have clean food and water. And they have no role to play in this problem.”
Within no time after the push from the apex court, Delhi’s environment minister, Gopal Rai, announced that all schools in the state will be shut from the next day till further orders. Other desired steps were yet to be taken by the Centre and adjoining states.
Half-hearted efforts
In Parliament, on November 29, minister of state for environment, forest and climate change Ashwini Kumar Choubey laid down the corrective measures being taken by the government. On the apex court’s order dated November 15, 2021, he told Lok Sabha that the government was taking effective steps to control air pollution, especially due to construction activities, industries, transport and thermal power plants.
In a written reply, Choubey maintained that the government was considering ‘work from home’ for all of its employees working in Delhi-NCR. Among other steps, he said, the steps taken to check “alarming pollution in NCR and Delhi” included the constitution of a commission for improvement of air quality. The commission is supposed to ensure coordination among all states under NCR in this regard, he said. Sharply reacting to the assurances, senior advocate Vikas Singh, who is appearing for Aditya Dubey before the Supreme Court, said, “It is all just paperwork whereas the implementation is zero.”
Calling for stricter policing to ensure implementation of the restrictions, Singh said, “Despite a ban on firecrackers, the implementation was poor this year. The central government had mandated that only BS6 vehicles will be allowed in Delhi-NCR from April this year. And yet, we have a large number of old vehicles that are causing pollution. Similarly, laxity is seen with regard to the compliance of the CPCB’s air quality norms when it comes to coal-based power plants, and factories in and around Delhi.”
Car seva The Supreme Court has frowned at the Delhi government’s campaign urging drivers to switch off their vehicles at red lights
Maintaining that other contributing factors such as factories and vehicular emissions, firecrackers, construction-related activities, are always there round the year, Singh said, “They must be dealt with all through the year.”
Commenting on the ongoing construction of the Central Vista project, he said, “When there is a public health emergency, a development project of any kind can’t be allowed to carry on. No project of national importance can be held more important than the lives of the people. It may be a pet project of the Prime Minister but still, it cannot be built at the cost of the innocent lives of the city’s people.”
“When the Supreme Court has imposed a ban on construction activities, I don’t see how the work on the Central Vista project can be allowed. If you go around India Gate, just see the dust around it. The government hasn’t taken any measures to suppress the dirt,” he said, adding that his petition hadn’t demanded a construction ban. “While common people have been suffering due to this ban, how come the construction work on big projects continues?”
Pertinently, Ashwini Kumar Choubey, quoting a study conducted by TERI-ARAI in the year 2018, had recently told Parliament that industries, followed by dust from road and construction activities, and transportation ,were the major contributors to Delhi’s air pollution problem in winters.
Singh added, “The government is not at all serious. If you look at all the affidavits that the government of India has filed in the Supreme Court this year, they haven’t touched the issue of stubble burning, whereas the whole petition is about this issue.”
With Punjab elections round the corner, Singh alleged that the central government was giving a free run to farmers. “To win the elections, they (the ruling party) are willing to sacrifice the lives of Delhi residents. We have seen the Prime Minister repealing the three farm laws. Stubble burning was allowed rampantly this year and there has been a quantum jump in the air pollution on that account, as per pictures put out by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The government doesn’t want to offend the farmers whereas the court is also acting very soft on them.”
Last hope
Aditya Dubey, who has been experiencing respiratory problems since childhood, said, the apex court was the last hope for Delhi. “I filed my petition in September last year, sensing that the political parties were least bothered about an issue that has tremendous public interest,” he said. While the crisis has been worsening by the year, he added, “The government is not taking any concrete steps to mitigate it. Millions of people are dying every year. And this year, people have even weaker immune and respiratory systems because of the Covid-19 pandemic.”
Vikas Singh, who is also president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, seems disappointed with the case proceedings. “I am not being allowed to argue my case properly in the Supreme Court. The government is asked to file its responses first before I table facts before the court which doesn’t happen in a court,” said Singh.
“When the petition was heard in October, the immediate concern was stubble burning. Steps should have been taken to put raiding teams in place to take action against the erring farmers. To ensure that wherever the burning takes place, there should be a fire brigade to douse the fire. But the court didn’t allow me to argue after the government came up with affidavits, talking about some committees and reports. And the whole proceeding of the case got drowned in these reports,” he added.
Arpit Bhargava, a lawyer practising at Delhi High Court, has written a letter to Chief Justice N.V. Ramana. “Due to excessive pollution in Delhi from October to December each year, the health of my three-year-old baby and my parents deteriorate,” he has stated in his plea, requesting immediate steps to mitigate the pollution problem.
Meanwhile, lamenting the fact that air pollution can severely affect human health in many ways, Shivam Pandey, another lawyer, moved the Delhi High Court on November 30. He has demanded financial compensation and medical insurance from the state and the central government.
Cause and effect A truck kicks off a cloud of dust in Noida. (Photograph by Tribhuvan Tiwari)
Smoke around the stubble
On November 15, the central government, in an affidavit filed before the Supreme Court, said stubble burning accounted for only four per cent of Delhi’s air pollution in winters and seven per cent in summers. Citing the findings of the Ministry of Earth Sciences’ air quality monitor, System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research (SAFAR), however, Vikas Singh has contradicted this, showing that stubble burning in October-November contributed to 50 per cent of Delhi’s pollution.
Claiming that the government quoted figures recorded after the fire-farm season was over, Bhargava referred to NASA’s latest data that was reported on December 1. According to the data, 2021 was the worst in the past five years in terms of stubble-burning incidents in north India. “The whole idea behind the petition was to ensure that the government takes some steps, besides providing some sort of incentives to the farmers, before it criminalises stubble burning,” Singh said.
“Last season, the government kept getting the case adjourned so that the matter dies a natural death. Again this year, it wanted the matter to get adjourned to next October,” he said, adding that “The Supreme Court is not being respected by the government, which feels that it can get away with everything.”
To save groundwater, Punjab and Haryana governments in recent years have enacted two laws. Vikas Singh and Arpit Bhargava blamed these laws for Delhi’s pollution as their statutes prohibit farmers from paddy sowing before the official dates. They maintained that the laws have changed the sowing pattern, shortening the window between Rabi and Kharif seasons. “It leads to delay in plantation and harvest, which leaves the farmers with little time to prepare the field for the next wheat crop. As a result of it, farmers are left with no option but to set fire to the paddy stubble,” said Bhargava.
While Dubey asked the government to provide alternatives to the farmers, Vikas Singh pressed on manual harvesting as a sustainable solution to stubble burning.
Cause and effect Farm stubble burning in Haryana. (Photograph by Tribhuvan Tiwari)
What needs to be done
Describing government efforts as cosmetic, Dubey said, “Measures like installation of smog towers is a futile move and has minimal effect on air pollution levels. The state government recently ordered six thermal power plants to shut down until the end of November. But these plants were already inoperational.”
“At a time when the air quality is in a severe category, emergency measures are urgently required. The institutions, which are supposed to ensure clean air, must be held accountable. There should be strict implementation of the construction ban. Fines should be imposed for violations,” he added.
Vikas Singh advocated the use of artificial rain as is done in Beijing. But at the same time, he said there was an urgent need to look into the causes of the pollution. “If the factories, the thermal plants and the vehicles are not following air quality norms, strict action must be initiated against them. When CNG was introduced as per the Supreme Court order, there was a huge hue and cry. Today, we need to take such drastic measures. Since such measures prove unpopular, nobody wants to take the risk.
Bharati Chaturvedi, founder and director of Chintan Environmental Research and Action Group in New Delhi, dismissed what she termed “knee-jerk” reactions of the government. “First of all, public transportation needs transformation. We need 6,000-8,000 safe electric buses—with women drivers and conductors—that cater to all parts of Delhi. Secondly, we need to decentralise solid waste management. Biodegradable wastes should be processed by composting in the middle and upper-class residential areas,” she said and went on to add her third recommendation, “We need clear construction norms and a government agency that deals with construction and malwa (concrete waste) only. Besides city residents, this is also required for construction labourers.”
Behind all the velvety curtains of the national capital city, said Chaturvedi, “About 3,30,000 households live in slums. And a large number of them burn biomass for cooking purposes.” While demanding an adequate increase in subsidies on LPG under Ujjwala Yojana to help slum residents of Delhi shift to clean fuel, she added resolutely, “Delhi has no moral right to blame Punjab for its pollution problem when its own women in slums are compelled to burn biomass in chulhas for the most part of the year.”
Underlining the need for raising awareness, Aditya Dubey remarked, “The pollution problem will get redressed only when the citizens start voicing their opinions. If air pollution becomes an electoral issue, I guarantee you, the problem will get solved within no time.”
(This appeared in the print edition as "Breathless!")
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