Officials’ absence at bad air meet in Delhi highlights compliance challenge

Delhi's air quality crisis worsens as AQI surpasses 300, but environment minister's review meeting goes unattended by senior officials.

The Capital’s fight against pollution seems set to be caught in the crossfire between the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government and the office of the lieutenant governor (LG), with bureaucrats from 28 departments and agencies not heeding the environment minister Gopal Rai’s summons for an emergency review meeting on Monday.

Delhi Environment Minister Gopal Rai during a high-level meeting on pollution in New Delhi on Monday. (HT PHOTO)

The meeting was called a day after a blanket of haze brought back the gasping sense of the city’s helplessness in tackling the annual air quality crisis as the city’s air quality index (AQI) surpassed 300 for the first time this season and settled in the “very poor” band.

Rai, following the meeting attended by what he said were mostly junior officials, said none of the secretaries of the heads of departments, including the environment secretary, attended the meeting, while some officials, who asked not to be named, said there appeared to have been a communication gap.

A senior government officer, who asked not to be named, said that “many senior government officials were present at the CAQM (Commission for Air Quality Monitoring) meeting last week where a decision to invoke GRAP 2 was taken and there may have been a communication gap regarding Monday’s meeting”.

A senior official from Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) said officials of the level of deputy commissioner and chief engineers were present at the review and said steps will be implemented.

As it is, Delhi’s pollution is a crisis spanning multiple states. A large factor in the most acute phase of the crisis that typically last between October-end and mid-November is smoke from farm fires in the states of Punjab and Haryana.

For years, the task was spearheaded by EPCA, the Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority, set up in 1998 and reporting to the Supreme Court. With its mandate laid down by the top court, the body had a wide remit and powers to direct steps to mitigate air pollution.

In 2021, the Union government created the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM), which now has complete legal mandate to order states adjoining the National Capital Region (NCR) to take actions to combat air pollution. These actions, however, still need to be implemented by the administrations.

“It seems that for them, the pollution is still not an important issue. Some departments had sent such junior officials who did not even know about steps being taken by their department under GRAP-2. I request HODs and chief secretary to focus on this over the next month. Unless senior officers become active, it becomes very tough to implement these counter measures,” Rai said in a letter to chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, who heads the three-member National Capital Civil Services Authority (NCCSA) that has control over bureaucratic transfers and postings.

While Kejriwal is the head, his decision is outweighed by those of the LG and the chief secretary, who too reports to the LG. The NCCSA was set up, first by an ordinance then an act of parliament, after a bruising fight between the AAP and the LG, who reports to the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Union government, ended in a court order. That order was in AAP’s favour for the most part before the ordinance and Act cementing the NCCSA.

The LG office and the chief secretary did not respond to requests for a comment.

Delhi’s toxic air spares none. The city’s elected government, the bureaucracy and the LG must set aside their differences to work together on a crisis that has been near impossible to tackle as it is. Squabbling over orders and credit will certainly make it any better.