The EPCA proposes radical solutions to control the city’s air quality but ignores the basics
There is an old English idiom ‘Missing the woods for the trees’; basically this is used to imply that people get so focussed on the details that they forget the problem. The EPCA has decided to go after vehicular pollution and power generation by ignoring the two major root causes of air pollution which they themselves recognise: Crop stubble burning by farmers in Haryana and Punjab and rampant construction dust in NCR. The failure of the Central and State Governments to either incentivise farmers for not burning crop residue or punish them for burning stubble is shameful and for this all major political parties are to blame. Mollycoddling rural voters at the expense of urban citizens is nothing but a brazen display of their lust for power rather than actually doing anything to improve the lives of Delhi’s citizens. But then politicians breathe rarified air and can afford expensive air purifiers and conditioners. Just like the ban on firecracker sales, the decision to shut down the use of diesel generators is very well-meaning but again ignores some ground realities, most importantly that reliable and assured power supply is not a given in India. And the timing will raise hackles, as immediately following Diwali the traditional wedding season starts, those days when you read about 25,000 weddings in the Capital. Well, nearly all but a few of those weddings take place in decked up shamianas powered by, you guessed it, diesel generators. If this decision is a perverse way of controlling rampant wedding expenditure, it is another matter. If not, just like the decision to ban firecracker sales was bound to raise hackles and be seen by some as a curtailment of a joyous celebration of the biggest festival of the Hindu calendar, Diwali, do not be surprised if the EPCA decision evokes a similar reaction.
Then there is that other problem in India, enforcement. India has no shortage of rules and regulations; in fact, if you read through India’s traffic rules, for example, you will find them to be up to the mark. But no enforcement exists in the main and where it does it is so infrequent that the public at large is genuinely surprised and it rarely does it stop them from continuing to brazenly flout the rules. Take stubble burning. It is already banned across most north Indian states but farmers continue to flout the rules and the punishments for breaking the rules are so mild that even if someone gets caught the punitive action is no deterrent. Delhi Police has picked up a few illegal firecracker traders, but sales are continuing. A similar fate will meet the EPCA recommendations because they are neither nuanced nor take into account social realities. The public is very likely to ignore them altogether. Most people understand that a large social coalition has to be built to combat air pollution.
But the Government and its agencies have to realise a few things — to get people to use personal transportation less they need to speed up infrastructure development, crack the whip when it comes to enforcement, and implement the rules already in place. New ideas are a dime a dozen in this country; getting things done, on the other hand, is whole different story.