Under a cloud

When top policy makers, experts, captains of industry and a host of foreign dignitaries descended on Gurgaon for the annual World Economic Forum (WEF) last fortnight to take stock of India's growth story, they were confronted with a typically north Indian hazard – dirty November smog.

The thick cloud of toxic smog that greeted the high profile visitors, hid the sun and enveloped them in a haze of dust, making visibility a nightmare.

If there was a fair evaluation of India's growth trajectory, it was not evident. On display were an abrupt end to the conference and a series of tweets to and fro on how India's capital city was the most polluted in the world. What was designed to be a PR coup turned out to be unmitigated disaster.

As can be expected, the reactive establishment got into the damage control mode with the blame game playing out in full swing. India was both shaken and stirred. The capital's smog is not merely a talking point for the city's elite; it poses considerable environmental, health and transportation hazards as the winter schedule of airlines and trains go haywire due to poor visibility and the risk of respiratory illnesses go up.

Environmentalists point out that dust particles in some places are more than 30 times the guidelines set by the World Health Organisation (WHO). Observes Sunita Narain, director-general of the Delhi-based advocacy group Centre for Science and Environment, "Delhi's air is getting worse every year''.

Various studies have revealed that India has the world’s worst air pollution and that air quality for metropolitan Delhi's 22 million inhabitants has steadily deteriorated over the past decade.

What causes smog? It depends on who is talking. For instance the Delhi government headed by Shiela Dixit blames the burning of rice straw in neighbouring Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, who in turn want Delhi to control deadly vehicular pollution first.

Ramesh P Singh at School of Earth and Environmental Sciences Chapman University, US, told TSI about this complex phenomenon. ``In the beginning of October and November, smog starts forming over the Indo-Gangetic plains. The main cause of this formation is vehicular pollution, biomass burning and emissions from the coal-based power plants.

The source of pollutants are located everywhere in the Indo-Gangetic plains, from states in west India to east Indian states like West Bengal and Bihar. In Bihar, the major contributor to smog is coal mining. The westerly winds are responsible for bringing pollutants from west Pakistan to west India, which in turn are transported to the eastern parts of UP and Bihar. NO2 (Nitrogen Dioxide) concentrations are higher during October and November in Delhi and Greater Noida region."

There are other economic issues involved. Unwilling to pay high labour cost to clear farm waste, cultivators burn paddy straw to make way for wheat sowing. The practice of burning post harvest paddy stubble in agricultural fields contributes to severe smog in Delhi.

This is what has emerged from the satellite images released by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) which show large number of fires over agriculture fields in Punjab. Though the Environmental Protection Act of 1986 provides for a jail term up to five years besides Rs one lakh fine for burning waste, it has hardly been implemented as it could snowball into a political controversy.

Sunita Narain draws our attention to how Delhi which accounts for 8 per cent of registered vehicles in the country, is busy adding 1,100 new cars every day. “Trying to stop paddy burning in Punjab against diesel emissions by SUVs in Delhi is a toss-up between survival emissions and luxury emissions. The state government has to see that Delhi alone adds 1,100 new personal vehicles a day - double of what was added in the city in the pre-CNG period. The market share of diesel cars is more than 50 per cent of sales and diesel emission norms legally allow higher limits for NOx and particulate emissions as compared to a petrol car," points out Narain, also a member of Environmental Pollution Control Authority appointed by Supreme Court to study the current smog situation. Says Singh, who deployed a sun photometer during his tenure at IIT Kanpur , "During October and November, Diwali enhances these pollutants and as a result black carbon concentrations are found to be very high. In the last several decades, ground measurements in the Diwali week have revealed higher pollutants and enhancement of black carbon concentrations.''

Smog is by no chance specific to India. “During the 40s and 50s, the western world had experienced severe winter pollution. But the infamous London smog (that had killed 4,000 people in a week in December 1952) and other similar events are now a matter of past, simply because of aggressive policy action to control pollution. India can also do that,'' points out Anumita Roychowdhury, executive director in charge of the air pollution and transportation programme at the CSE.

It was only after a three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Altamas Kabir had taken note that the matter was taken up seriously. The Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority (EPCA) headed by Bhure Lal convened meetings with senior officials of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh and called for immediate remedial measures. They included some long standing demands: a ban on paddy straw burning within a time frame of two years, incentives for farming methods already present to avoid stubble burning, promote alternative uses of paddy straw and execute plans for power generation and bio-methanation in the next two years. It also proposed stringent action on polluting vehicles and industries and a ban on garbage and leaf burning in the NCR.

Of course, the country also needs to end dependence of rural households on coal stoves, which also contributes to the brown haze over North India. It is time India's policy makers wake up to these concerns or else, they say, pollution would choke the very vitals of its infrastructure.   

ksnarayanan@thesundayindian.com