DC Edit | Delhi-NCR air too toxic to breathe, but govts dither
Delhi’s air in winter is injurious to health. With an Air Quality Index nearing 500, even breathing in Delhi has become hazardous. In the old days, people visiting India would be advised, gratuitously of course, not to drink the water or breathe the air. Today’s air over the region, including Gurugram, Noida and Faridabad, is smothered in a pea soup fog that hangs like a malevolent blanket, so much so people are being advised to stay indoors on days of poor AQI.
Emergency responses have seen the closing of schools, people working from home and regulations imposed inhibiting normal life as the geographical and meteorological conditions of the winter season take over to affect the weather pattern with a foul fog because of which even trains struggle and flights get routinely rerouted.
When there was a pressing need for action on a war footing to mitigate or try to stave off the crisis that grips New Delhi and many parts of north India every year starting in November, the governments of Delhi and the Centre and of many adjoining states have not been seen to be proactive. They have done little about helping people breathe air that is tolerable, and which can support life in people with medical conditions while not incommoding normal persons.
The political blame game, however, creates only din of the kind that people have become inured to as netas point fingers at each other. Truth to tell, the burning of stubble is a national problem about which not enough has been done to find alternatives like changing cropping patterns. Some states like Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan may have contributed their share to exacerbate this problem by being blasé about it while Punjab and Haryana have at least taken some measures to control it.
The problem is, however, larger than crop burning which is only one contributing factor. Giving up construction and demolitions may be tough to do in a country that is an eternal work in progress, but rules must be adhered to if such activity is not to add to the existing dust and vehicle pollution from transporting people and goods. It will take years anyway to phase out the more polluting older vehicles, but leaders do swear by half-measures like odd and even number plates on alternate days.
The Supreme Court was incensed at the lackadaisical attitude of governments towards handling this recurring crisis until the problem of severe air pollution peaks in November-December when crop burning adds to it because of the timing of harvests. The fact of the matter is that it won’t go away until a national effort is coordinated by the Centre and the states follow a host of regulations lest they leave a sizeable population of the country gasping for air and millions risk dying prematurely.
The people can contribute by taking public transportation or car-pooling and the Delhi government can help by not letting solid waste burn and regulating better the incineration of waste in unscientific manners through private industry. So long as blaming everyone but themselves and passing the buck are national pastimes of leaders, the state of the capital will be like this in its unbeautiful cloak of winter. Governments must act round the year to control the conditions that lead to foggy winters and people must wake up, too, and help.