Dealing with Delhi’s toxic air: A governance failure, not a seasonal anomaly

Every winter, Delhi’s air pollution crisis returns with grim predictability. Schools shut, hospitals issue advisories, flights are delayed, and public anger briefly peaks. The debate that follows is equally familiar: stubble burning versus vehicles, construction dust versus coal plants, individual behaviour versus government failure. Yet despite years of discussion and data, the air remains toxic. This persistence points to two deeper truths: a lack of public clarity about the issue, and a failure of public systems—planning, governance, and institutional capacity—unfolding in plain sight.

At the same time, several civic efforts are working to address these gaps. One point is often missing from the public narrative: air pollution is not a behavioural anomaly or a technological gap that can be solved through private fixes. It is the cumulative outcome of fragmented urban planning, weak enforcement, and misplaced priorities over decades. Delhi’s air quality is poor not just in winter but throughout the year. Seasonal meteorology worsens the crisis, but the sources are structural and continuous. Motorised transport, dominated by private vehicles, accounts for nearly half of particulate pollution.

Construction and road dust contribute roughly another third. Coal-based thermal power plants operating on the city’s periphery add significantly to emissions, with many violating sulphur dioxide norms. Household emissions, small industries, and biomass burning further compound the burden. Stubble burning, often portrayed as the primary villain, contributes a variable share—between 4 per cent and 20 per cent depending on wind conditions—and only for a limited four- to six-week window. Yet public discourse disproportionately fixates on it, allowing harder conversations about urban mobility, land use, and industrial regulation to be postponed. This misalignment between causes and responses becomes stark when public funding is examined. India’s National Clean Air Programme allocated about? 19,711 crores over six years for 131 cities—roughly ?25 crores per city per year. A large portion of this funding remains unspent. Of what is spent, much goes toward short-term measures such as water spraying on roads, which offers visual relief but little evidence-based impact.

The deeper constraint is institutional capacity. Pollution control boards remain understaffed, underpowered, and financially constrained, with limited enforcement authority. Urban planning institutions lack legal teeth. Transport, environment, housing, and land-use decisions continue to operate in silos. Without empowered institutions, even well-intentioned policies remain aspirational.

Policy incoherence compounds the problem. Restrictions on construction in ecologically sensitive zones coexist with permissions for large-scale development. Older vehicle bans are inconsistently enforced, even as the policy narrative increasingly centres on electric vehicles.

While EVs are important, they do not address a fundamental truth: replacing one private vehicle with another does not solve congestion, emissions, or exposure. Cities with cleaner air have not merely electrified cars; they have reduced dependence on them. International experience shows that another path is possible. Cities that have successfully tackled air pollution treated it as a governance challenge rather than an environmental add-on. Beijing invested heavily and consistently, relocated polluting industries, enforced emission norms, and built integrated public transport systems. The lesson is not replication, but coherence and follow-through.

A more effective response in India requires clear sequencing of action. In the short term, priorities must include immediate reduction of exposure: strict enforcement of construction-site compliance, penalties for non-compliant vehicles and industries, and demand-side measures such as congestion pricing and rationalised parking fees.

Revenues should be ring-fenced to strengthen public transport and last-mile connectivity. In the medium to long term, air quality improvement depends on reducing private vehicle dependence. This requires sustained investment in reliable public transport, safe walking and cycling infrastructure, and the creation of low-emission zones around schools, hospitals, and dense activity centres. Industrial and thermal power plants that cannot meet emission standards must be relocated beyond urban peripheries.

At the institutional level, pollution control boards must be adequately staffed, funded, and empowered. City-level planning authorities need legal authority, and state and national institutions must be strengthened to enforce environmental and mobility norms.

A regional unified metropolitan transport authority across all modes can align planning, pricing, and operations. Transparent, real-time air quality data should guide both policy and accountability.Delhi’s air pollution crisis is neither inevitable nor insoluble.

It is the outcome of choices—and can be reversed by better ones. Experts such as Sunita Narain, Arunabha Ghosh, Vimlendu Jha, Amit Bhatt, and Jyoti Pande Lavakare have articulated both the problems and solutions for years. Treating clean air as a national priority, strengthening public institutions, and committing to sustained reform can turn today’s crisis into an opportunity to build healthier, more resilient cities.

Parul Sharma is an urban planner and founder of Urbanatomy Lab and City Scanner; views are personal