By Chetna Gill
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| Cover Image Attribute: File photograph showing low visibility caused by smog at New Delhi Railway Station on 31 December 2017, taken after 9 AM. / Source: Wikimedia Commons |
Each
winter, as the sun dips lower and the air grows crisp, a familiar haze settles
over New Delhi, turning the city's vibrant chaos into a muted shroud. In
November 2024, monitors recorded an air quality index of 795 across much of the
capital, with peaks reaching 1,700 in isolated pockets, levels that surpass the
scale's intended maximum of 500. Weather applications now display skull emojis
for such readings, a stark visual cue to the peril embedded in every breath.
This is not mere discomfort; it marks a threshold where emergency conditions
prevail, and prolonged exposure invites severe health consequences for all.
Delhi, home to over 30 million people, claims the unfortunate distinction of
being the world's most polluted capital for the fifth time since 2018. Eight of
the ten most polluted cities globally that year lay within India's borders, a
statistic that reveals the scope of the challenge beyond the capital alone. Yet
this crisis, though acutely visible in the cold months, persists year-round, a
slow-burning affliction that demands attention not as a seasonal nuisance but
as a structural failing.
The
human toll emerges most clearly in the bodies it burdens. Fifteen percent of
deaths in Delhi trace back to air pollution, equating to one in every seven
lives lost. Children born into this environment face a grim arithmetic: studies
estimate they will forfeit eight to ten years of life expectancy simply from
inhaling the ambient air. Lungs of young residents resemble those of
forty-year-old habitual smokers, marred by damage accrued without a single
cigarette. Hospitals report surges of forty to fifty percent in respiratory
cases during peak pollution periods, with patients arriving afflicted by severe
coughs, asthma exacerbations, and infections that inflame eyes and airways.
Environmental activist Joti Panda Lavakar captures the deeper erosion: "The
short-term effects are not what I'm worried about, which are seasonal coughs
and asthma. What I'm more concerned about are the long-term effects, which are
irreversible. There is irreversible health harm that pollution causes. This is
India's silent pandemic in a way, pandemic in slow motion."
Non-communicable diseases multiply under this strain—strokes, heart attacks,
chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, even diabetes—triggered by particles
that evade the body's barriers, infiltrating lungs, bloodstream, and organs
alike. A Lancet study from the previous decade attributes over three million
deaths in India to air pollution between 2009 and 2019, while the United
Nations agency for children cautions that such air heightens risks of acute
respiratory infections in the young. Physicians describe it as a medical
emergency, a silent killer that does not strike outright but exacerbates
vulnerabilities, swelling lung linings, inflaming circulation, and tipping
fragile equilibria toward catastrophe.
These
particles, primarily PM2.5—fine matter under 2.5 micrometers in diameter—elude
simple defenses. For scale, a human hair spans about seventy micrometers; these
invaders measure thirty times finer, depositing deep in alveoli where gas
exchange occurs. Composed of black carbon, organic carbon, sulfates, nitrates,
and minerals, they link to respiratory woes, cardiovascular strain, and cancer.
The World Health Organization deems five micrograms per cubic meter a safe
annual average for PM2.5, yet India's national standard permits eight times
that, at forty micrograms. In Delhi, annual means routinely exceed these
bounds, compounded by PM10, larger dust particles that, while less penetrative,
blanket surfaces and resuspend into the air. A day spent navigating the city underscores
the variability: mornings and evenings yield the highest concentrations, with
underground metro cars registering levels warranting gas masks, streets pushing
beyond 300 on the index, and even air-purified offices failing to drop below
equivalents in New York's Times Square. Auto-rickshaws, idling amid trucks and
buses, expose riders to plumes that spike readings further, while evening meals
outdoors demand masks alongside meals. As temperatures fall, experts anticipate
worsening, with smog thickening mornings and evenings alike.
Geography
conspires against relief. Delhi nestles in a natural basin, ringed by the
Himalayas to the north—towering at eight thousand meters—and the Aravalli hills
to the south and west. Pollutants released locally or carried from afar collect
like sediment in a bowl, unable to disperse. Winter brings temperature
inversion, inverting the usual convection: ground-level air cools faster than
the layer above, forming a warm cap that traps contaminants below. Mixing
heights plummet from one thousand meters in summer to one hundred in winter,
compressing the same emissions into a tenth the volume and multiplying
concentrations tenfold. Northwestern winds from October to February ferry
additional burdens—smoke from Punjab and Haryana's crop residue fires, dust
from the Thar Desert, emissions from industrial hubs like Panipat and
Sonipat—directly into the basin. Beijing mirrors this topography, enclosed by
the Yan Mountains to the north and Taihang to the west, with analogous inversions
shrinking mixing heights from fifteen hundred to under two hundred meters.
Their terrain amplifies local emissions by fifty to one hundred fifty percent
in winter, augmented by autumnal crop burns in Hebei and Shandong provinces,
plus Gobi Desert sandstorms that slash visibility to fifty meters. In 2013,
Beijing's PM2.5 crested at 755 micrograms per cubic meter, nine times the World
Health Organization limit, earning the moniker "air apocalypse" as
residents donned masks for errands and hospitals overflowed.
Local
sources compound the entrapment. Delhi registers 1.2 crore
vehicles—outnumbering those in Mumbai, Chennai, and Kolkata combined—each
expelling PM2.5 via exhaust and resuspending ten to fifteen grams of road dust
per kilometer traveled. Approximately 1,800 new cars join daily, alongside 1.1
million entering from surrounding regions, in a city ranked forty-fourth
globally for congestion. Idling vehicles emit about four pounds of carbon
dioxide hourly, while older models—diesel beyond ten years, petrol past
fifteen—persist despite Supreme Court mandates for their removal. Road designs
prioritize flyovers and widening, sidelining pedestrian paths, cycles, and
public transit, fostering a culture where cars symbolize aspiration yet clog
arteries. Construction generates 6,850 metric tons of waste daily, with
compliance on dust suppression—green netting, water sprays, covered
transport—languishing below thirty percent. Waste burning, industrial activity,
and power generation add layers, as do sporadic spikes from Diwali fireworks.
Even with Supreme Court approvals limited to "green" variants
emitting fewer particles, violations proliferate post-curfew, with residents
noting, "Pollution is inevitable because the cracker ban has been lifted and
mostly everyone celebrates Diwali by burning firecrackers. Even though Diwali
is about sweets, meeting loved ones, going to their houses and exchanging
sweets, today's generation celebrates Diwali by burning firecrackers."
Such events, alongside routine rubbish incineration, propel indices into the
hazardous.
Stubble
burning crowns the seasonal culprits. From mid-October to mid-November, Punjab
and Haryana farmers torch thirty-five million tons of paddy straw, a legacy of
1970s Green Revolution policies that, via groundwater laws, compressed the
rice-to-wheat planting window to ten or twenty days. NASA satellites logged
forty thousand to ninety thousand fires annually from 2021 to 2024,
contributing up to forty percent of Delhi's PM2.5 on peak days as smoke drifts
south. The Commission for Air Quality Management, established in 2021 to
address Delhi-NCR woes, coordinates with the National Clean Air Programme of
2019 targeting 131 cities, yet fires endure. Incentives like straw sales to
biomass plants or subsidized machinery for soil incorporation—covering eighty
percent of costs—lag in scale, leaving burning the expedient choice over
labor-intensive alternatives. Protesters in Delhi decry this cycle: "It is
so crucial to speak up because the air we breathe has become so polluted that
living itself has become difficult. We keep hearing about plans to reduce
pollution, but it's only got worse over the years. Every government says they
will do something but the only thing they are doing is manipulating the data.
Nothing is happening other than that."
Government
initiatives span decades, yet yield uneven results. The Central Pollution
Control Board, founded in 1974 for water issues, expanded to air under the 1981
Air Prevention and Control of Pollution Act. Late-1990s measures relocated
polluting industries from Delhi and shifted public transport to natural gas.
Emission standards for new vehicles now match European Union benchmarks, with
incentives for electric vehicles and clean fuels. The Graded Response Action
Plan activates in stages as indices climb: construction halts, odd-even vehicle
rules enforce, schools shutter, indoor advisories issue—masks, closed windows,
purifiers. Arvind, with the Commission for Air Quality Management, affirms
sensitization across levels: "In India, there is a lot of sensitivity.
Firstly, it's about acknowledging that it is an issue. So that is the first
part which has been very appropriately done, and the entire mechanism right
from the central government to the state governments to the bodies, they all
well sensitized. They all understand the imperatives and the need to actually
combat this issue. Mitigative measures have begun, but as we see and learning
from experience across the world, it's a long journey." Sprinklers settle
dust during dire months, and firework bans, though partially lifted for
"green" options, aim to curb spikes. Regulations since 2015 impose
fines on crop burns, reducing incidences somewhat.
Critics,
however, discern a gap between intent and execution. Disagreement clouds attribution:
the Ministry of Earth Sciences pegs vehicles at forty-one percent of PM2.5,
SAFAR at 39.2 percent, TERI at 25 percent with road dust at 30 percent, another
analysis at 35.6 percent dust, and yet another at 65.9 percent—a thirty-point
variance born of disparate methods, sampling, and models. Industries deflect:
automobiles cite dust, construction vehicles, officials stubble. Actions like
"Happy Seeder" machines for direct wheat sowing into residue falter
on supply shortages, leaving many farmers without alternatives. Lavakar
observes, "Unfortunately the government is not doing enough. It is not
doing the right things... The only way to reduce pollution is to cut emissions
and that is not being done. In fact what this government seems to be doing is
managing perceptions, managing optics. There are images that we see of sprays,
water sprayers being sprayed around air pollution monitors. So they're trying
to show that pollution levels have come down where in fact they have not come
down." The Earth Sciences Ministry forecasts prolonged "very
poor" quality post-Diwali, underscoring, "As a society we should take
this responsibility and see to it that we keep things under control. There were
clearcut orders: use green crackers, avoid crop burning. So if we can add to
these things I feel we would be doing a good service to the society."
Graded plans, while easing acute episodes, treat symptoms: "Certain
measures, maybe they are restrictive, but if they help to control and combat
this issue and lower the levels of emissions and air quality during those
winter months, it's not a long-term measure in any case. It's the analogy
between a disease and a symptom. If somebody is suffering from cancer and the
symptom is that they get headaches and fever, so you give them paracetamol.
That's what GRAP is. So GRAP is the paracetamol to the underlying cancer of air
pollution in India."
Beijing's
trajectory offers a counterpoint of resolve. From 2013's nadir, their annual
PM2.5 average fell to 29 micrograms per cubic meter by 2024, the cleanest year
on record, with heavy pollution days in single digits. Skies cleared to blue,
parks filled with joggers mask-free, cafes spilled outdoors, children played
unbound. A five-pronged plan drove this: shuttering 2,000 factories, including
relocating Shagang Steel at a $15 billion cost and 80,000 job losses;
subsidizing coal stove replacements with electric or gas units,
government-funded mostly; expanding subways from 54 kilometers in 2000 to
nearly 1,000 today, alongside thousands of electric buses; afforesting 54
million trees, generating maintenance jobs; and curbing burns
economically—straw sales to biomass at profitable rates or eighty
percent-subsidized balers—slashing fires seventy percent in three years.
Enforcement proved relentless: satellites scanned twenty-four-seven, with
two-hour extinguishment mandates or penalties for officials. Lavakar praises
the focus: "China actually focused on the right things which was cutting
emissions... The way they did it was enforcement right from the top down where
fossil fuel use was reduced... They had very strong pollution emission norms
which had actually been... implemented... all the way from the top all the way
down and they did it in a watershed... pattern where it was not just done in
one part because in India pollution is an all India problem and it's there
through the year it's not just a winter problem." India, too, advanced
renewables and relocated thermal plants from dense areas, yet rolled back some
norms in July, diluting rigor.
Personal
narratives illuminate the quiet erosions. Madhu, a writer from Chennai,
relocated to Delhi in November 2023 for career promise, only to surrender
outdoor joys—walks, park sits—for health's sake. "I love being outdoors...
When I came here, it's something that slowly I had to just let go of. I didn't
have an option to go out a lot without really coming back with a cold or a
cough or a dizzy head... Two months ago, I decided I'd had enough and quit my
job. I don't know which city I'm moving to next, but I've decided not to stay
in Delhi because I don't want to give that cost anymore. I don't want to pay up
with my health." Such choices echo in work absences, reduced productivity,
and premature ends, costing India $95 billion annually—three percent of GDP—per
a 2019 Dalberg analysis. The burden spreads: "It is an India problem.
Often when you hear people in Delhi and NCR saying, oh, it's so polluted and I
want to go and live somewhere else, I mean, don't be in a fool's world because
pollution and the health risk is now quite uniformly spread." The
percentage breathing substandard air rose from thirty to over fifty percent,
with coastal cities faring better but northern plains, landlocked like Delhi,
swallowing emissions without expulsion.
This
persistence stems partly from perception: citizens view it as transient,
receding with spring, forgetting until October's haze returns. "Citizens
feel that it's only a short-term problem, not a long-term problem. Everybody
goes home. Winter months are over. Air pollution's forgotten. The coming
generations are going to be affected, which is like a very serious
affair." The Supreme Court intervenes yearly, extracting pledges that fade
with the season. "Here we have a severe growing problem of air pollution,
and every year the Supreme Court makes sure that they come down heavy on the
government. The same story is repeated where they come in, they produce some
sort of a statement before the court. Everybody goes home." Protests
disrupt this complacency: hundreds marched in Delhi recently, dozens detained,
voicing frustration over inaction. "Delhi residents cannot breathe easy.
Every winter the air pollution in the Indian capital climbs to dangerous levels
and residents want the government to do something about it. They say they miss
breathing clean air." Demonstrators seek clearer skies through public
outcry, tensions flaring as buses hauled away the arrested.
Development's
imperative often frames environment as secondary, a luxury for later stages.
"I think the primary reason is that we are a developing country that has
internalized a message that it has to be development first and environment
later." Yet Beijing's model contests this, proving emission cuts
compatible with growth via top-down enforcement and incentives that render
pollution costlier than alternatives. India confronts analogous geography and
sources—thirty percent of Delhi's PM2.5 from environs, sixteen percent from
burns—yet enforcement wanes on aged vehicles, dust controls, and fire fines.
The toxicity paradigm evolves: "The moment the toxicity component comes
into that, I think the world will evolve in a different kind of a
paradigm." Prioritizing PM10 reductions—via sprinklers trapping larger
dust—overlooks PM2.5 lethality: "If you are reducing PM10, which is a
bigger molecule, you're automatically reducing PM2.5. This does not hold
mathematically... If you're only reducing PM10 and not PM2.5, you're still
going to die."
Reform
requires emission-focused strategies, scaled infrastructure, and unified accountability.
Beijing's decade-long pivot—from apocalypse to azure—demonstrates feasibility,
even amid sacrifices. India, with its sensitized mechanisms and historical
precedents like natural gas shifts, possesses foundations to build upon. The
journey remains protracted, but as Lavakar urges, cutting emissions demands
precedence over optics. Society shares the onus: "We get severe coughs
often because of the polluted air and dust. Especially when we travel in a
two-wheeler irrespective of the masks. Breathing becomes challenging in the
open. We must wear masks for our own safety." In Delhi's bowl, where winds
deliver and inversions seal, sustained cuts—to vehicles via robust retirements
and transit expansions, to burns through comprehensive mechanization, to
industries by stringent norms—offer the sole egress. The air, once a glorious
cultural emblem, now chokes an undrivable metropolis. Clarity awaits not in
seasonal palliatives but in resolute, collective commitment to cleaner
tomorrows.
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