Delhi High Court and NGT continue vigil over air pollution

The Delhi High Court on Thursday stated that the alarming levels of air pollution were like capital punishment for citizens of the city, curtailing about three years from their lives due to rampant crop burning and government inaction.

The court stated that the problem was causing the decimation of around 60 million life years or about one million deaths. "It is literally capital punishment as the capital is being punished and that too for no offence. People are being killed in the capital. You cannot kill Delhi," the bench of Justices Badar Durrez Ahmed and Ashutsh Kumar said, terming reduction in life expectancy due to pollution and government inaction over it as genocidal and murderess.

Referring to a WHO study, the court highlighted the condition of air pollution in 13 Indian cities (including Delhi) as being in the top 20 worst polluted globally and noted that Delhi had the highest amount of people affected by respiratory ailments and deaths due to air pollution.

The bench referred to satellite images and blamed Punjab as the main culprit in crop burning and gave the chief secretary of the state till November 18 to explain why the court's earlier directions were not carried out and warned of contempt proceedings being initiated in case of an unsatisfactory answer.

The court directed the authorities to monitor the situation and segregate bio-degradable and non-degradable waste while emphasizing the need to set up waste to energy plants.

Last month, while hearing the air pollution matter, the high court had asked the states of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan and Haryana to stop stubble burning for which the national capital grapples with the menace of haze each year.

In parallel proceedings, the principal bench of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) directed the setting up of centralised and state level monitoring committees to set up action plans and asked Delhi's four neighbouring states to consider banning old diesel vehicles in an attempt to tackle the rising environmental emergency.

The NGT directed that every state committee should in their first meeting, notify one district where land use in agriculture is high and make it a model district for implementing orders to stop stubble burning.

The bench headed by NGT Chairperson Swatanter Kumar reiterated the use of helicopters to sprinkle water in the Delhi-NCR region, especially in those areas where pollution levels are in excess of the prescribed standard limits.

The tribunal suggested neighbouring states, particularly Punjab, to consider withdrawal of incentives including granting of free power to farmers burning crops and urged authorities to incentivise farmers to sell paddy straw to biomass plants instead of indulging in crop burning.

"All construction and demolition activities and transportation of construction material should be halted temporarily and stone crushers should be directed to shut down," it said

The bench also observed that providing breathable air to citizens is a constitutional obligation and directed state governments to install air purifiers in government schools.

"All five state governments shall start vacuum cleaning of roads to prevent dust pollution and vehicular pollution," the bench said while asking Delhi to strictly enforce their existing order on deregistering diesel vehicles older than ten years and petrol vehicles older than 15 years.

The green panel directed the inter-state central monitoring committee and state committees to enforce their orders on vehicular pollution, dust pollution, solid waste and crop burning.

While the central monitoring committee would meet once in two months starting from November 17, the state level committees would conduct meetings every month starting November 24, it directed