Delhi's pollution woes are far from over: CSE

Delhi's pollution troubles are "far from over", a green body today said as its analysis showed that the number of vehicles entering the national capital from other states every day is close to the total number of vehicles that get registered in the city annually.
A real time cross-border traffic survey by Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) said that personal and passenger vehicles from outside account for 22 per cent of the total particulate load which is not only undercutting pollution control efforts in Delhi but also making enormous demand for land for parking facilities.
Noting that while cutting down on truck pollution is a good step, but not enough for the city as it is a "pollution highway" for cars, CSE said diesel fuel use is still high in Delhi as the total number of diesel cars, taxis and SUVs entering the national capital daily are also 2.5 times the diesel vehicles registered in Delhi during 2014-15.

CSE claimed that instead of scaling up public transport connectivity in the NCR aggressively, both the Centre and state governments are planning to turn city roads into highways and elevated corridors to induce more personal vehicle travel through Delhi.
"Delhi's battle against pollution, congestion and energy guzzling can get increasingly more difficult if its own explosive motorisation gets further aggravated by the huge daily influx of vehicles from outside. An equal numbers of vehicles are going out of Delhi daily contributing to pollution in the NCR towns as well.
"This new analysis reconfirms that ineffective public policy on public transport connectivity is increasing dependence on personal vehicles, leading to enormous pollution and ill-health in Delhi-NCR," said Anumita Roychowdhury, CSE's head of sustainable urbanisation programme.

The CSE survey at nine entry points shows that around 3.07 lakh cars and 1.27 lakh two-wheelers enter Delhi daily.

If this is taken as the 70 per cent of the total traffic from all 124 entry points, then the total number of cars, SUVs and two-wheelers from all entry points can be as much as 5.65 lakh.
The Economic Survey of Delhi for the year 2014-15 shows 5.69 lakh total vehicles were registered that year in the city and thus, the total number of vehicles that enter Delhi daily is almost equal to the number that is registered in the city," CSE said.

It also said that toxic fumes from local and incoming vehicles is also contributing to growing risk of cancer in the city as the National Cancer Registry Programme Report of 2012-14 shows incidence of cancers is highest in Delhi among the major Indian cities.
CSE urged government to take urgent steps to upgrade the
current in-use emissions testing, prepare for real driving emissions testing with portable emissions monitoring systems for Euro VI vehicles and make vehicle manufacturers liable and accountable for emissions performance of the vehicles during their useful life on the road.
CSE said that the PUC system, which is the only system to check emissions from on-road vehicles in India, is extremely weak in terms of lax norms, poor enforcement and poor quality test procedures.

New data from the Delhi Transport Department shows that failure rate is as dismal as 5 per cent - nearly all vehicles pass the test and there is no data on how many vehicles show up for test.
CSE said that the Supreme Court has recently given directions to the EPCA to audit all the 614 PUC stations.
"There are serious concerns over quality and credibility of PUC tests across the cities. A detailed audit that was carried out by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) in 2013 in 76 PUC centres exposed serious anomalies, non compliance with the code of practice among others," it said.

The PUC system is not even designed to test tiny particles and NOx on road - the key concerns from diesel vehicles. Volkswagen was caught cheating on NOx emissions, CSE said.
"The fact that India is totally unprepared to prevent emissions frauds and underperformance of emissions control systems on roads was proved a few years ago when the Tavera fraud case of General Motors was exposed," CSE said.
India has already specified more advanced On Board Diagnostic Systems in post-2013 vehicles. This should be integrated with vehicle inspection programme for more effective monitoring, the analysis said.
"India needs strong compliance regulations to make manufacturers responsible for on-road emissions performance for a vehicle's useful life on road.

"Consistent with the global best practices, India needs an independent authority to check emissions against standards, issue recall of vehicles by companies if they are found non-compliant, levy fines on defaulting companies and withdraw approval of sale if vehicles do not conform with the stated emissions targets," the analysis said.
CSE's review showed that currently, Indian certification agencies do not select vehicle samples for certification tests randomly and independently.
In fact, certification agencies give prior notice to manufacturers about the approximate time during which samples will be collected from a given lot which compromises independent and impartial testing, it said.