Thanks to the Commonwealth Games in October 2010, Delhi, despite having 44 lakh (4.4 million) vehicles — more than those of Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata put together — has shaken off the dubious tag of being the country’s most polluted city, reports Chetan Chauhan. | See graphic
Thanks to the Commonwealth Games in October 2010, Delhi, despite having 44 lakh (4.4 million) vehicles — more than those of Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata put together — has shaken off the dubious tag of being the country’s most polluted city.
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Mumbai, which has less than half as many vehicles as Delhi, now tops the list in vehicular emissions because its roads are more congested, and there are fewer vehicles running on compressed natural gas (CNG).
These are the findings of a recent study by the New York-based Desert Research Institute.
In the last four years, the Delhi government has spent over Rs 8,500 crore (Rs 850 million) to build flyovers and widen roads, another Rs 7,000 crore (Rs 700 million) on the second phase of the Metro rail project and over Rs 2,000 crore (Rs 200 million) for new ‘low floor’ CNG buses.
“Faster moving vehicles and better public transport have meant a lower emission footprint in Delhi,” said Sarath Guttikunda, associate professor at the institute, who led the study that compares vehicular emissions in 2008 across 20 big and small cities of India.
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In comparison, Mumbai’s infrastructure, despite the opening of the recent sealink between Bandra and Worli, has improved little. Both cities record a 10-12 per cent increase in the number of vehicles every year.
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In comparison, Mumbai’s infrastructure, despite the opening of the recent sealink between Bandra and Worli, has improved little. Both cities record a 10-12 per cent increase in the number of vehicles every year.
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“Carbon dioxide (CO2) and particulate matter emission load from Mumbai buses, three-wheelers and taxis is more than four times that from similar vehicles in Delhi,” said Guttikunda.
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.
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