Former IPS officer Kiran Bedi on Saturday launched a sharp critique of how Delhi’s pollution crisis is being handled, urging government officials to step out of “sanitised” meeting rooms, into the smog-filled streets.
Kiran Bedi, who was the BJP's CM face in Delhi in the 2015 assembly election, described the capital’s worsening air as a “public-health emergency” and said on X, “Governance can’t be remote-controlled… It must stand in the dust, breathe the same air, and act with urgency.”
Her remarks come a day after she made a public appeal to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to personally intervene and direct efforts towards reducing the air pollution. In her message to the PM, Bedi recalled his leadership style during her tenure in Puducherry as Lieutenant Governor.
“Sir please forgive me for pleading again. But I have seen your very effective Zoom sessions during my time in Puducherry. How you got every body to deliver and perform time bound in several national challenges. How everyone was inspired to meet the deadlines and the goals,” she wrote.
Bedi added that Modi's involvement would reassure citizens.
{{/usCountry}}Bedi added that Modi's involvement would reassure citizens.
{{/usCountry}}In a series of post on her X profile, she said, “If each agency performs its role with leadership, visibility, consistency and coordination, NCR’s air pollution can be effectively controlled.”
‘Every walk will compel action’
Bedi outlined the systemic failures behind India’s air crisis.
“The nation’s air-pollution crisis is not an accident of the present; it is the outcome of decades without true coordination in governance,” she wrote.“What we need now is a full reset toward collaborative administration: a shift from passing blame to building solutions with conscientious will.”
Her posts repeatedly stressed field presence over office-bound decision-making: “Best sensitisation is to come out daily, in the field, under the open skies, and breathe the air… Cardinal Rule is to come out daily from sanitised enclosures. And walk the streets. (Not drive)..Every walk will compel expeditious action.”
Delhi’s air quality remains ‘very poor’
Bedi's flurry of posts on X continued as Delhi breathed “very poor” air again on Saturday, with an AQI of 316, according to CPCB’s Sameer app. Forecasts indicated no immediate improvement in the coming week.
The capital has recorded “very poor” AQI almost every day in the month of November. Three days this month saw air quality in the “severe” category, crossing the 400 mark.
Questions were also raised earlier this week, when the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) revoked Stage 3 restrictions under the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP), even as the 24-hour average AQI touched 377 on Thursday.
According to an earlier HT report, the CAQM subcommittee did not call a GRAP meeting on Thursday despite deteriorating conditions, expecting improvement the next day.
Kiran Bedi's blueprint
Calling for a complete shift in how Delhi and NCR authorities respond to pollution, the former top police officer said, “The need of the hour is the visible presence of key coordinators — leaders who step out from behind conference tables and into the open.”
She emphasised the need for area town halls, real-time field visits, and administrators who “see, feel and correct” conditions on the ground.
She also referred to recent comments by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant to this effect, who had said, “What magic wand can a judicial forum exercise? … Tell me what can we direct?”.
Bedi shared what she described as a “considered responsibility plan.”
- "MoEFCC to enforce national standards and fuel rules
- CAQM to ensure uniform NCR-wide directives
- PMO to align key ministries
- State CMs/CSs/DGPs to drive enforcement
- District Magistrates to lead daily field execution
- Municipal bodies, police and pollution boards to manage waste, dust, traffic and industrial compliance."