New Delhi: Delhi is getting high on smog as it loses the battle to Beijing in controlling its air pollution.
According to an analysis done by News18.com, based on the data from Berkeley Earth, a California based non-profit organisation, the average PM 2.5 level has been marginally high in Delhi as compared to Beijing for about three years. This difference widens and the trend peaks drastically in the national capital during the winters of November due to various activities taking place simultaneously.
The air quality of the Indian capital was polluted about twice as compared to its Chinese counterpart. On an average, while Beijing has had a PM 2.5 level of 50.39 microgram per cubic metre (μg/m3) from March 2016 to January 2019, Delhi breathed air with PM 2.5 level at 111.22 μg/m3.
Going by the System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research (SAFAR), an air quality index standardised under the Union Ministry of Earth Science, the Indian capital has been breathing ‘severe’ to ‘very poor’ air every winter — “a silent crisis” in the light of International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) of the World Health Organization (WHO). It declared outdoor pollution as “carcinogenic”.
An Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) report further showed Delhi with the highest number of patients with lung cancer, with an emerging trend of non-smokers getting affected by the disease. As per the figures released by the Delhi Cancer Registry, lung cancer cases have been increasing in men and women with the former showing the highest spurt among all cancers. While the numbers have gone up from 14 cases in 2008 to 15.5 in 2010 per 100,000 population for the men, it has risen from 4.2 cases in 2008 to 4.6 in 2010 for the women.
Beijing Setting Benchmark
Although comparatively lower — but like Delhi — the pollution level also rises during the winters in Beijing. Analysing the situations at the two capitals, a Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) study released in 2015 suggests that while both face similar challenges, the stringency applied by the Chinese capital is a lesson for the Indian counterpart.
Several studies suggest that the major sources of air pollution in the national capital across seasonal variations are: vehicular emission, industries pollution and power plants, biomass burning and dust. Few of these indicators are also common to the Chinese territory. Their government, however, has swiftly focused and acted upon these issues.
Vehicular Emissions
The Beijing government had capped the number of cars that can be sold in a year in the city and further limited the issuance of new licences each year. The Chinese government also “does not allow a wide difference between petrol and diesel prices”, which has limited dieselisation of the car segment to as negligible as one per cent, as opposed to over 60% (in 2012) in Delhi, where the transport sector contributes to close to half of the carbon dioxide emissions, according to a CSE report.
Apart from making the commercial and public vehicles switch to the compressed natural gas (CNG) as part of preparing for the Commonwealth Games in 2010, the Delhi government has not taken any further step of that statute in combating pollution.
A 2019 report of the Supreme Court-appointed Environment Pollution Control Authority (EPCA) reminded the need for a Regional Rapid Transit System (RRTS) as planned in 2006 based upon the findings of the Union Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) in 2018 that ‘over 1.1 million vehicles enter Delhi daily at just eight entry points.’
The court has imposed an Environment Compensation Charge (ECC), allowed entry to only the Delhi-bound commercial vehicles and prohibited the same for over 10-year-old trucks and directed for the construction of two expressways—Eastern Peripheral Expressway and Western Peripheral Expressway (EPE and WPE) to divert truck traffic from Delhi. The EPCA also noticed in its report that the construction of RRTS will help in tackling the vehicular emissions to some extent by decongesting the city.
However, the Delhi government has objected to this on grounds of “lack of finances”. To this, the EPCA has flagged the increased revenue and the unutilised funds of the Delhi government, including that of the transport department. In its report, the EPCA had observed that the ECC can fund the Delhi government's first year share.
Public Transport
As per another CSE report released in August 2018, Delhi plays worst in “overall toxic emissions and energy consumption” due to its high population, relying more on private transport over public and “abysmal level of walking”. To tackle this issue, Beijing has scaled up its public transport and reduced fares to promote usage, while Delhi still lacks last mile connectivity. Recently, the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation has hiked the fare of Delhi Metro, one of the most populous mode of transport here.
As per official data, the number of Delhi Transport Corporation buses have reduced from 6204 in 2010-11 to 4072 in 2017-18. With an addition of 1,757 cluster buses between the time period, the number of buses still remain at 5,784, 420 lesser buses than that of 2010-11.
To shed pollution load from personal vehicles and taxis, the EPCA had also advised to enhance regional connectivity (bus, train and Metros) to reduce movement of personal vehicles. It called the current intra-National Capital Region connectivity as “extremely inadequate” that causes “congestion and pollution”.
Better, But Not Good
November 2018 fared better in both the capitals — Beijing and Delhi — than that in the previous two years. Another CSE report released in February 2018 shows that the smog during November of 2016 and 2017, that severed the air quality, led to the realisation of the need for GRAP (Graded Response Action Plan) in 2017, the emergency action plan to tackle pollution.
The implementation of GRAP has significantly reduced the pollution level in the air from over 600 μg/m3 of PM 2.5 that was recorded in mid-November 2017 to around 100 μg/m3 within just a month in Delhi. The WHO standard for permissible level of PM 2.5 in the air is 25 μg/m3 while that of India’s National Ambient Air Quality standard is 60 μg/m3.
Earlier, the EPCA, after taking cognisance of the severe pollution every winters in Delhi, had banned construction activities from Nov 1-Nov 10, 2018. Other steps lot tackle the pollution menace were: ban on garbage burning, entry of trucks in the city, and the closure of power plants, brick kilns and stone crushers.
Still Far Behind
China started with passing the ‘Action Plan on Prevention and Control of Air Pollution’ on September 12, 2013. Taking regional approach, it identified key polluted regions, set targets and listed measures to achieve them. The case remains all too different in Delhi.
There are 13 thermal power plants with a capacity of over 11,000 MW in the radius of 300 km of the national capital, which are expected to contribute to the secondary particles that highly lead to the increase in PM2.5, as per an IIT Kanpur report submitted to the Delhi government in 2016. The report's action plan recommends controlling SO2 (sulfates) and NOx (nitrates) from power plant can reduce PM10 concentration approximately by 99 µg/m3 and for PM2.5 the reduction could be about 57 µg/m3.
Beijing also targets to reduce coal consumption—a key air pollutant—from 23 million tonnes in 2013 to five million tonnes by 2020. By 2017, it had already reduced to 11 million tonnes by replacing all four of its big coal-fired power stations with natural gas-fired power plants and renewable energy.
A 2019 report titled Airpocalypse III released by Greenpeace, a Netherlands-based organisation, claims that while India optimistically assumes to reduce air pollution by 2024, “153 cities will be left with pollution levels exceeding the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS)”.
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