By: Dr. Amin
As winter approaches each year, Delhi and surrounding regions get enveloped under a thick, grey smog that blots out the sun, burns eyes and makes breathing torturous. This noxious blanket of smoke, vehicular fumes, factory emissions and construction dust chokes locals while alarming images make global headlines that even masks and air purifiers cannot fully filter out the damaging air.
With pollution spikes nearly 20 times the safe limit, school shut and flights diverted, Delhi struggles through emergencies akin to smoking 50 cigarettes a day. As the world’s most polluted capital, it exemplifies the public health crisis posed by toxic air and environmental decimation. Tackling this will require coordinated, multi-sectoral effort targeting key triggers.
Transport emissions constitute nearly 41% of Delhi’s PM 2.5 load, the dangerous particulate matter that penetrates deep into lungs. With vehicle population exploding despite crowded roads and limited parking, their fumes have become the worst polluters.
Tough policy decisions are vital to reduce this bulk of emissions – whether boosting public transport, closing traffic during severe weather forecasts or restricting private vehicles through odd-even schemes, congestion tax or hike in parking charges. Radical steps may invite resistance and impact lifestyles or commerce temporarily but are urgently imperative.
Alongside driving discipline and emission checks must be accelerated transition to electric vehicles, cleaner fuels and greener technologies like hydrogen cells or biofuels. Upto Rs. 1.5 lakh subsidy on EVs under Delhi’s EV Policy plus battery swapping infrastructure and purchase incentives for replacing diesel commercial fleets can accelerate this shift.
The Metro expansion and integrated public transit systems through common mobility cards, EV buses and feeder networks should likewise ease dependence on private transport. With studies showing living near busy roads directly correlates to reduced lung function and higher asthma in kids, curbing vehicular pollution is life-saving.
Next to transport, industries cause nearly 18% of Delhi’s emissions – from particles escaping factories to power plants fuelling supply chains. With light industries rubbing shoulders with residential areas too, their polluting impacts multiply.
Reducing industrial pollution will require technological upgrades like replacing obsolete technology with eco-friendly alternatives, fitting equipment with emission controlling devices and switching to cleaner inputs where possible. Authorities must strictly monitor industrial emissions compliance while providing incentives and subsidies to enable small producers in green transition.
Progressively shifting power supply from thermal to solar or hydro, creating industrial hubs distant from populated zones, improving waste management in manufacturing can help tremendously as well in controlling toxic industrial fallouts.
When industry, supply chains and jobs get disrupted by environmental measures, concerns over livelihood losses and production bottlenecks arise. But frameworks like skill mapping, training, social security provisions and sustenance subsidies can smoothen transition. Ultimately green industrialization is vital to protect not just health but even economy from environmental distress.
8-10% of Delhi’s harmful PM 2.5 emissions come from garbage burning – whether leaves and litter in public spaces or overflowing landfills roiling noxiously amidst houses. And construction activities and road dust constitute another 8% of lung-clogging particulate matter each year.
Eliminating open waste burning via penalties, improving garbage collection systems and remediating infamous landfills with waste-to-energy solutions can reduce related pollution. Similarly, enforcing construction guidelines on open sites – water sprinkling, wind barriers and covered materials storage can contain dust clouds blanketing neighborhoods.
Authorities must crackdown on violations while developing sustainable waste disposal frameworks and affordable dust control mechanisms for small operators to succeed here,
Delhi already demonstrates sincere efforts and innovations to curb pollution – from smog towers and pollution helplines to school air purifiers, artificial rain through cloud seeding and the ’Red Light On, Gaadi Off’ citizen initiative.
But policy inconsistencies, weak enforcement and resource constraints still hinder progress. Sustained collective action is crucial. Central and state bodies must collaborate with municipal corporations by bolstering their capacities and infrastructure. Private sector and public participation are equally vital to actualize solutions on the ground.
With air pollution linked to 3 million premature deaths yearly in India, Delhi must lead the charge in correcting trajectory well before crisis point. There are no quick fixes but through a combination of gradualist solutions, political will and public support, Delhi can step back from environmental precipice. Its citizens deserve nothing less.
