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Five-day Odd-Even plan may not help in curbing Delhi’s pollution emergency

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Angshukanta Chakraborty
Angshukanta ChakrabortyNov 09, 2017 | 17:24

Five-day Odd-Even plan may not help in curbing Delhi’s pollution emergency

The controversial Odd-Even plan for plying private and commercial vehicles on the streets of Delhi will be back as the capital’s pollution crisis breaches emergency levels, causing an uproar in the national media and public sphere. While Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal declared “health emergency” after being prodded by the Delhi high court, and holding meetings with the Lieutenant-Governor, will the return of the Odd-Even policy, that too for just five days from November 13-17, help lift the smog?

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With the toxic air housing particulate matter (PM) many times the recommended levels, Delhi government had banned the entry of trucks and construction activity for a few days in order to beat the smog. However, that hasn’t lowered the PM, dust and toxins in the air, since crop-burning in neighbouring states of Punjab, Haryana etc have not been tackled.

Delhi CM Kejriwal and Punjab CM Captain Amarinder Singh engaged in a Twitter tete-e-tete over the crop-burning issue, each blaming the other and the Centre and deflecting criticism from themselves.

There is justified outrage over the bureaucratic deadlock on the pollution emergency, and media is up in arms, since Delhi, the seat of national media in the country, is so impacted.

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It is in this heated context of health crisis, choking city and narrative wars, that Delhi CM Kejriwal has resorted to his Odd-Even formula, in order to help curb the pollution menace. But how effective is it going to be?

What about data?

While various arms of Delhi government is holding emergency meetings, the return of Odd-Even for a five-day period next week, might be more about political optics than hardcore data on vehicular pollution. That’s because apart from trucks which are a major cause of smog, the private vehicles such as two- and four-wheelers running on diesel and petrol have a very small share in the total pollution pie chart.

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Photo: Reuters

According to data from the Central Pollution Control Board, cars running on petrol and diesel have a share of 1.6 per cent and 1.4 per cent of the total vehicular emission contribution to PM, around 66.6 kg per day (approximate reading). However, trucks (already banned from entering Delhi) constitute 48 per cent, buses running on diesel contribute 6 per cent, while LCVs (light commercial vehicles) contribute 27.9 per cent.

The overall picture clears the air, as it were, on the actual vehicular pollution, and its share in the larger graph of major polluters, including industrial emissions, road dust, wood burning, among others.

This means that the Odd-Even exercise would be tackling only 3 per cent of the total vehicular pollution, which is itself a small fraction of the overall pollution contributors.  Why would then an exercise impacting the whole of Delhi, and its millions of citizens, be undertaken, as a short-term measure to curb a systemic problem?

In addition to the actual contribution of private cars to Delhi’s pollution, even the government buses running on CNG are not running up to their promised strength. In fact, DTC buses count have come down instead of an increase, forcing many to take other options, or use private vehicles. The rise on Delhi metro fares have also affected the daily commuters from the lower middle classes.

Though the first Odd-Even by Delhi government in January 2016 did have a marginal effect (10-13 per cent of vehicular pollution), according to a University of Chicago study, it was neither a massive failure, not a complete success, as the conflicting narratives went. But let’s not forget the experiment was carried out over a period of 15 days with a rather compliant Delhi, and the pollution level was lower in 2016.

Short-term measures for how long?

Though India cannot wish away its pollution crisis, jugaad has replaced systemic clean-up, and Centre seems least interested to help Delhi out in its moment of environmental vulnerability.

The health hazard and Delhi’s tag as the pollution capital of the world make for terrible press, but this is precisely the time to suspend petty politics and come together as citizens of India. Let’s also not forget that CM Kejriwal is helpless if coordination isn’t made available form neighbouring states ruled by Congress and BJP governments, and the burning of agricultural wastes to keep away pests and lower use of harmful pesticides needs an environmentally and economically sustainable solution.

Delhi pollution crisis impacts everyone, but it affects the poor the most – exposed to the toxins more and all the time, while the rich install air-purifiers in walled, air-conditioned environments actually exacerbating the matter. The pollution inequality isn’t addressed to a great extent by Odd-Even, but the measure might help in bringing an element of parity, in which the have-nots see the wealthier sections pooling cars or taking the public transport to commute. There’s no doubt a feel-good factor in that, but that’s designer austerity that might “unclog the city” somewhat, but only for five days.

Being the “gas chamber” is Delhi’s sordid reality, and it’s a shameful exposition of collective political and policy failure.

Last updated: November 10, 2017 | 15:57
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