After a brief interlude, Delhi’s 20 million citizens are back in the annual winter purgatory of toxic air, health problems and political mud-slinging. The air quality index has crept into the severe category, underlining that the relatively cleaner air around Diwali was due to sheer luck — a combination of better weather conditions, the festival coming earlier this year when temperatures were higher and faster wind speeds — and not any concerted planning by the authorities. This is puzzling because
After a brief interlude, Delhi’s 20 million citizens are back in the annual winter purgatory of toxic air, health problems and political mud-slinging. The air quality index has crept into the severe category, underlining that the relatively cleaner air around Diwali was due to sheer luck — a combination of better weather conditions, the festival coming earlier this year when temperatures were higher and faster wind speeds — and not any concerted planning by the authorities. This is puzzling because pollution spikes are an annual feature in the National Capital Region (NCR), giving policymakers ample time to formulate steps to tackle the problem institutionally and over the long term. Yet, despite several agencies, bodies and governments in the mix, the response is always after-the-fact, piecemeal and short-term.
Nothing exemplifies this rot more than the inability of successive governments to rein in the harmful practice of stubble burning in the fields of Punjab, or offer an alternative solution to cultivators to wean them away from farm fires. Three successive administrations — led first by the Badals, then Amarinder Singh and Charanjit Singh Channi and now Bhagwant Mann — have failed to convince farmers to use other methods to clear their fields before the winter crop. The Aam Aadmi Party being in power both in Delhi and Punjab fuelled hope for a solution, but it is now clear that no government has the appetite to impose short-term punitive measures on as politically powerful a constituency such as farmers. Such short-term myopia might be forgivable if governments are working on more institutional measures that, in the long term, will help Delhi’s citizens live a fuller, and better life, but those too are lacking.
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