Delhi's pollution crisis needs cleaner public transport, not shutdowns

Delhi's winter pollution plan relies on restrictions, while gaps in public transport and cleaner alternatives remain unaddressed, argues Sunita Narain.

Delhi’s season of despair has started with winter setting in. When you read this, it is likely the city will have slipped into the category of “very severe” pollution. It is a time when toxins settle closer to the ground and choke us. This will be worse on windless days and on days when winds bring smoke from neighbouring fields where stubble is being burned. The question every year is: What have we done to make this season less harmful?

 

The good news is that the Delhi government has announced steps to tackle winter pollution. The bad news is that these measures are, at best, half-hearted and weak, and, worse, they signal completely giving up on pollution control. The action plan is about shutting down the city, putting the onus on the public to suspend day-to-day activities. I say this knowing fully well that activities like driving to work add to pollution.

 

The sheer number of private cars and two-wheelers is a major contributor to air pollution. But the plan works only when commuters have viable alternatives, such as adequate and augmented public transport and roads where people can cycle or walk, before directing us to work at 50 per cent capacity for the coming three months — from November to January.

 

The government has taken a page from the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) playbook, without a clue of what this really means. Let me explain, as I was among those involved in taking the idea of GRAP to the Supreme Court. This was in 2016, when I was a member of the erstwhile Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority (EPCA) for the National Capital Region (NCR), and reporting to the court.

 

We proposed GRAP as a smog-alert emergency measure — not as a substitute for real action. It was called “graded” because restrictions would be introduced based on the severity of air pollution. The EPCA also took to the court the matter of trucks and other heavy-duty vehicles passing through Delhi. This added enormously to pollution. The court levied a congestion or pollution tax on the entry of these vehicles and pressed the Union government to expedite the construction of alternative bypass expressways. Over the next two years, many decisive and tough actions were directed, including the fast transition to Bharat Stage VI fuel and vehicle technology.

 

When the court gave the green signal to GRAP in 2016, it was cognisant of the disruption it would cause. Closing schools, for instance, would come at the cost of education and create problems for parents. It was not a measure that could be taken lightly.

 

In the original GRAP, notified by the Union government in 2017, schools were to close only on days when the air quality index deteriorated to the “severe” or “public emergency” category. Governments could introduce restrictions on heavy-duty vehicles entering the city and on plying private vehicles. The objective was to limit these measures to days when necessary and, meanwhile, to keep taking steps so that the measures would not be necessary. The inconvenience would prod governments to take year-long hard action. Shutdowns were not policy.

 

The government may argue that this is its grand plan. But frankly, there is no merit in this. Pollution-control measures are either half-baked, inadequate, or without the full-throated determination needed to clean up the air of Delhi-NCR.

 

Why do I say this? Two issues will clear the air. The first is the number of vehicles plying on Delhi’s roads. The only real way ahead is a time-bound plan to augment public transport, not just in Delhi but across the NCR and between its cities. We also need to make the transition to cleaner vehicles — electric buses, taxis, and three-wheelers should complement the electrified metro. Based on the EPCA’s recommendations, the court had laid the foundations for this by 2019 — it directed (in 1998 and reiterated again and again) the need for at least 10,000 buses in the city, large or small.

 

It cleared the way for the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation to expand its network and for the first high-speed rail corridor (Delhi-Meerut) to be built.

 

Obviously, much more needs to be done, particularly to interconnect the NCR so that it moves as one and to connect different modes of transport so that we can travel, switch, and reach our destination in affordable and convenient ways. But what we are doing is too little, too late.

 

Today, Delhi has only about 6,840 buses, instead of 10,000. Other cities of the NCR virtually have nothing for interconnections. The Delhi government’s plan to electrify its bus fleet is notable, but with this we need a plan to increase ridership and provide a viable alternative to people as they shift from personal cars.

 

The second, and finally, is the issue of industrial pollution from factories operating in unauthorised areas in and around the city. These have been directed to stop using coal, but there is little effort to ensure that viable alternatives are available, whether reliable and cheaper electricity or natural gas. I could go on. But my gripe is that we are not acting at scale, by taking tough and time-bound action to bend the pollution curve. 

 

The writer is at the Centre for Science and Environment. sunita@cseindia.org. X: @sunitanar