This refers to the editorial, “Paying price for clean air” (March 31). The Supreme Court's ban on the manufacture, sale and registration of Bharat Stage-III vehicles from April 1, though welcome, is not sufficient to solve the ever-growing problem of air pollution. More steps need to be taken to abate particulate pollution. The message that the apex court has sent out is clear — the accumulation of pollutants in the lungs is too high a price to pay for the chests of automobile manufacturers to overflow with cash.
We can manage without vehicles, but we cannot survive without lungs in a good condition. The estimated loss that the automobile industry is to incur as a result of the apex court's order is Rs 12,000 crore, but the risks to the health in the absence of the ban imposed by the court would have been impossible to quantify. The precedence of public health over the commercial interests of corporate behemoths upheld by the Supreme Court should become the guiding principle for conflict-resolution cases like these in the future.