According to the latest report released by the World Health Organisation, Delhi is the most polluted city in the world when it comes to air quality. More than 10,000 people are vulnerable to premature death annually due to the carbon monoxide levels touching 6,000 microgram per cubic metre — way above the safe level of 2,000 microgram per cubic metre. Experts tell SHAlINI SAKSENA that the Capital is choking as never before
Our environmental problems originate in the hubris of imagining ourselves as the central nervous system or the brain of nature. We’re not the brain, we are a cancer on Nature
— Dave Foreman, American environmentalist and co-founder of the radical environmental movement Earth First
In 1998, when the Supreme Court had instructed all public transport to run on CNG, it caused a lot of stir but the move reduced levels of respirable suspended particulate matter (RSPM) — from 409 µg/m3 in 1995. It went down further to 191 µg/m3 in 2000 and then 161 µg/m3 in 2007. Today, the situation is alarming with the RSPM touching the 316 µg/m3 point which is almost 16 times higher than what is considered healthy by the World Health Organisation (WHO). The figure is nearly twice that of Beijing, the world’s next most-polluted city.
According to the November 2014 data, Delhi has more than 2.9 million vehicles, including 8 lakh cars and other four-wheelers, and 20 lakh motorbikes and scooters that are more than 15 years old. This means that for Delhiites, air pollution is a serious health hazard. How urgent is the need to address the problem in the Capital can be gauged from a study conducted by the Kolkata-based Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute on Delhi in 2002. The institute studied 11,000 schoolchildren for three years. They were drawn from 36 schools, each within a 3 km radius of a pollution-tracking station. The study found that from lung function to palpitation, blurred vision to blood pressure, children between four and 17 years of age, were affected much more than their peers elsewhere — the figures were twice to four times as bad.
“It is unlikely that the deficits in lung function at the age of 17, found in a large number of the Capital’s schoolchildren, will be reversed as they complete the transition to adulthood,” the study said. The institute visited several schools and found: In lung tests conducted on 5,718 students, 43.5 per cent suffered from poor or restrictive lungs; about 15 per cent of the children surveyed complained of frequent eye irritation, 27.4 per cent of frequent headache, 11.2 per cent of nausea, 7.2 per cent of palpitation and 12.9 per cent of fatigue.
Delhi’s numbers were far higher than that among the ‘control group’ of 4,536 students selected from 17 schools spread across the much less polluted rural areas of Uttaranchal and West Bengal. The major source of this problem stemmed from the city’s air convulsing even more due to the 80,000 trucks which enter and exit Delhi every night. Some of these trucks are 10, 15 and 20 years old. What adds to the problem is that in order to save money, several of these trucks use a mixture of the much cheaper kerosene and diesel as fuel contributing to more than 60 per cent of the pollutants released in Delhi.
According to Dr Sanjay Kulshrestha, a senior pediatric surgeon in Agra and the author of Tsunami on Roads, Wake Up India!, who has filed several PIls with the National Green Tribunal (NGT), vehicular pollution is the worst enemy of our respiratory system. “There is no part or system in the body which is immune to it. Air pollution is now not only affecting a pediatric to geriatric population but also human fetuses. Studies on pregnant women have shown that air pollution can increase chances of birth defects, fetal growth retardation and premature delivery, especially in cases where residence is close to busy roads or within 500 metres of busy roads.
“About 55 per cent of Delhi’s population lives in that influence zone. According to the Capital’s birth rate (3.54 lakh per year), about 88,000 babies are affected by this vehicular pollution,” Kulshrestha says. He adds that there is an explosive growth of motorised vehicles in recent times in Delhi. Up to February 2014, there were about 82 lakh vehicles on Delhi roads.
If we see the increase in the number of motorised vehicles in the last three decades, we find that vehicles added in each decade are as follows: 12.5 lakh (1980-90), 18 lakh (1990-2000) and 41 lakh (2000-2014). If we compare this figure with that of 1980, vehicles have increased 16 times.
“Out of total vehicles that have come on the roads in the last 30 years, more than 50 per cent have been added in the last decade. While in 1980, the total number vehicles was five lakh, today every year five lakh vehicles are being added. This means, nearly 1,400 new vehicles are added on the roads every day,” Kulshrestha points out.
He also tells you that 95 per cent of the air pollution problem in Delhi is due to personal vehicles. The only way to control the number of cars from being added on the roads is to increase parking charges — make them so high that people are forced to take the public transport. Increase the rate of taxes, introduce congestion charges, as has been done by several other countries, and check the sale of private vehicles.
“The sad part is that while it takes 25 departments to give clearance for an industry to set shop in the Capital, there is no such monitoring done for cars. One can just buy a vehicle off the showroom. The first thing that needs to be done is to check the explosive increase in cars. The public can’t blame the Government for everything. The Government has a phased programme for introducing Euro-IV vehicular emission norms requiring an investment of Rs55,000 crore by oil and automobile companies in improving fuel quality and vehicular engine specifications. But auto companies have delayed the implementation of these norms. Also, the road expansion is at a 2.9 per cent but the increase of vehicles nearly 15 per cent — more than 10 times the road expansion. It is time that the public took some responsibility as well,” Kulshrestha says.
Personal cars on Delhi’s roads are five times more than the national average of two per cent. As much as 15 per cent of Delhi’s population of 1.67 crore has personal cars. The three top road traffic hazards directly related with this very high number of vehicles are: lagging road infrastructure leading to traffic jams/congestion; road accidents and air pollution.
Now that polluting industries have been shifted out of the city, air pollution has become directly proportional to traffic. A report by the Central Pollution Control Board and WHO showed that in 2013 Delhi was worst hit by air pollution among all metro cities. A recent study by scientists from IIT Delhi says that 7,350 to 16,200 premature deaths each year are occurring in Delhi due to air pollution along with 6 million asthma attacks.
A Delhi Government report of 2012 said that an average of 23 people die in Delhi daily due to respiratory diseases emanating from deteriorated air quality, a number that has doubled in the past four years much like the increase of diesel vehicles. Diesel is extremely toxic. It is also the key reason why there are such high levels of particulate pollution.
Diesel is known to emit higher smoke, particles and NOx than petrol. According to WHO and other international regulatory agencies, diesel particulates are carcinogens. Even the clean diesel running on fuel with 350 ppm of sulphur, allows higher limits for NOx and particulate emissions as compared to petrol cars.
To tackle the situation, the National Green Tribunal has come up with a drastic step — to ban 15-year-old petrol private vehicles and 10-year-old diesel vehicles from plying in Delhi-NCR. While the move may sound drastic, experts say that it is a welcome step that should have been taken long back.
According to Anumita Roychoudhary, associate director general at the Centre for Science and Environment, what Delhi needs is urgent implementation of recommendations. “The time to speculate why the Government has not done anything is not the issue here. We have said that there is need to tighten PUC testing methods and compliance.
Grossly polluting vehicles can occur at any vintage and these will have to be weeded out with a good inspection programme and smoky vehicle checks. Deploy more advanced in-use monitoring strategies. Integrate on-board diagnostic system for in-use inspection; introduce remote sensing technology for screening on-road vehicles among others. Make PUC certificate conditional requirement for obtaining annual insurance for vehicles in a time bound manner,” Roychoudhary says. She also tells you that the focus should be on an action plan that includes pollution emergency action for smog episodes and short-and-medium-term measures for more lasting and durable change to meet clean air standards.
Some recommendations by the CSE include: Implementing the Air Quality Index with health advisories and pollution emergency measures; leapfrog emissions standards to Euro V in 2017, and Euro VI in 2020. Nation-wide Euro IV should be in place by 2015; Control dieselisation with tax measures. Diesel has been branded as class I carcinogen by WHO. Need fiscal measures to keep clean fuels like CNG competitive vis-a-vis diesel; Improve and scale up public transport and last mile connectivity: Bring all the 11,000 buses within a year. Ensure reliable and frequent services, GPS enabled public information system; multi-modal integration for metro and bus and last mile connectivity.
In 2000, the Supreme Court approved a report by Bhure lal who was the chairman of the Environment Pollution Prevention and Control Authority and a member of the Monitoring Committee on Sealing set up by the Supreme Court. The 1999-2000 report on environmental pollution and the ways to curb it, said: “The report was tabled in the Court pertaining to pollution levels in Delhi. The Court stated that it could be implemented in all Indian cities. According to the report it is important to reduce sulphur and nitrous oxide levels in the atmosphere.
Some of the report’s recommendations were: To use lead-free fuel, to use more CNG in public transportation, to ensure all old vehicles and two stroke-engines are scrapped from the city, to encourage more public transportation, discourage private vehicles in central business districts, ban trucks from city roads, to implement strict parking norms and to ensure there are signal-free roads,” Dr Ojha an environmental consultant with Technogreen Environmental Solutions based in Pune says.
Instead of following all the recommendations of the report, Delhi implemented only two — use lead-free fuel and introduces CNG in public transport. Many opine that Delhi would not be in its present situation had it followed the report to a T. Whether banning is the correct solution is a question still hanging fire. Some experts say, there are alternatives. Others say that NGT has technical scientists who must have looked into all aspects before asking for a ban.
Delhi’s air pollution needs to be looked at from three angles — social, legal and moral. “The problem is that while water pollution and other pollutants are visible to the naked eye, air pollution can be only felt. This means that public’s concern over the quality of air is almost negligible. Public knowledge also is limited. What we can’t see, we are not concerned about. Not many doctors will tell you outright that any health-related problem is directly linked to air pollution,” Ojha says, adding that there can’t be a single point solution to the problem.
“There is need to approach the problem at many levels. Banning polluting vehicles can be one way. There are several other means but for that there has to be conscious policy-making on tackling air pollution. There is diesel retro fitment, a technique through which there is reduction in consumption of fuel for existing diesel cars. This needs to be made available at affordable rates. The public transport needs to be improved, the media should do regular stories on the hazards of air pollution in order to educate the public, there is need for extensive political will, proactive approach of the civic agencies and responsible authorities are some of the driving forces,” Ojha explains.
While welcoming the NGT move to ban petrol vehicles that are 15 years old and diesel vehicles that are 10 years old, Kulshrestha is not in favour of the ban on motorbikes. “It is the personal vehicles in the city that are neutralising the Government’s efforts to curb air pollution. Almost 2,000 industries were shifted from the Capital. So, industrial pollution no longer applies to the city.
Of the 1,400 vehicles that are added on Delhi roads everyday, one-third are personal vehicles. There is need to address this first. Once this is done, several related things will also be taken care of like the need for continuous need to expand roads to accommodate these cars which is also a major cause of air pollution in the city,” Kulshrestha says.