Will Delhi become a gas chamber again this time? Preparations to keep the air clean are inadequate

Author: Chandrabhushan
As the time of air pollution is approaching, there is a lot of commotion about it. Delhi’s Environment Minister Gopal Rai has said that he/she will implement new measures this year to reduce pollution in Delhi. One of these measures is artificial rain, which is a way of making fake rain by putting chemicals in the atmosphere. he/she has emphasized that Delhi will use artificial rain this time with IIT Kanpur so that air pollution can be reduced. he/she has talked about work from home and also discussed how to reduce private vehicles on the road.

doubt on result
The most interesting thing is that this time he/she did not talk about stubble burning. Everyone knows that the most severe air pollution in Delhi in October-November is caused by stubble burning. Still he/she did not talk about stubble, even though Aam Aadmi Party is in power in both Delhi and Punjab. I would like to say that the experiment of fake rain that the Delhi government wants to do again is also not going to yield any result. If we look at the last decade, the Delhi government has only experimented. They implemented odd-even, installed smoke towers which are almost non-functional. Switching off the engine at traffic signals has also not been done. Stopping commercial vehicles and not allowing them to enter Delhi has also not yielded much result.

cause something else
All these experiments which are being done for the last 10 years have not yielded any results. Now we are talking about artificial rain or work from home, so this too will not yield any significant results. The reason for this is very simple that the sources of pollution in Delhi are different, the reason is something else. First of all, it is necessary to accept that Delhi is only 2.7% of the NCR region. Delhi’s pollution is caused by Delhi, but most of its causes come from outside Delhi. Many studies show that 50 to 70% of Delhi’s pollution comes from outside.

Biomass and dust
If we want to reduce pollution in Delhi, we need a regional coordinator approach. There is no other solution than that. Secondly, the main cause of pollution in Delhi is biomass, which is used today as fuel for cooking, as heating fuel to avoid cold in winter, and is used in small domestic industries. Apart from that, there is stubble. This biomass contributes 60% to PM 2.5 in Delhi-NCR today. Apart from that, 30% pollution comes from factories and power plants, where coal and other fuels are used. All this together becomes 90%. At the same time, less than 10% comes from vehicles. Dust pollution is also high in Delhi. Dust comes from where buildings or road infrastructure are being built. Dust also comes from all the open lands in Delhi area.

will compete together
If the Delhi government is serious about reducing air pollution, then it should not work on quick fixes like artificial rain. The Delhi government needs to sit and work with the Centre, Haryana, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. First of all, the Central Government needs to create an Air Pollution Control Zone and notify the Delhi Air Pollution Control Zone. There should be coordinated work on air pollution in the control zones in this entire area. A study by I Forest shows that this Air Pollution Control Zone can be formed by combining Delhi NCR and four districts of UP – Aligarh, Hathras, Mathura and Agra. Its radius is 150 kilometers. All the districts around Delhi should come under it. There is a need to work on air pollution in a coordinated manner in this entire zone.

The smoke must be stopped
Secondly, we can reduce biomass. For this, not just the Delhi government, but all governments will have to launch a coordinated Ujjwala scheme. The objective of the Ujjwala scheme should be to transfer the heating and cooking fuel inside the air pollution control zone to natural gas and electricity. In this entire 150-km radius, which includes 20-25 districts apart from Delhi, there is a need to replace heating and cooking. If we do this, then 25 to 30% air pollution can be reduced immediately. Then burning of stubble will have to be strictly stopped. This will reduce pollution by another 10%.

Electric Way
The third way is to arrange for factories and thermal power plants. The small factories of the MSME sector get polluted by boiler fuel. If we shift the boiler fuel to electricity, then pollution will also be reduced to a great extent. As far as the big industries are concerned, they will need to be forced to follow the standards. Fourth, we need to plant a lot of trees and grass in the Delhi Air Pollution Control Zone so that dust can be reduced. And finally, we need to rapidly shift Delhi’s vehicles to electricity.

half the hope
If we address these five bold actions, we can reduce pollution in Delhi by 50% in the next 3 to 5 years. But is the Delhi government ready for this?

(The author is CEO of iForest)

Presentation: Rahul Pandey