Gasp Capital

Bhim Rao is used to passers-by holding their noses while crossing his workplace, a tent house next to a massive garbage dump in the middle of one of the biggest government colonies in Delhi, RK Puram. “We have everything here – stench, mosquitoes and flies. The dump is not cleaned on a daily basis and overflows every two days. Sometimes, the garbage collects for four days,” said Rao.

It takes him at least two-three phone calls before the truck operated by a private contractor comes to pick up the garbage. Unfortunately, for those living in the nearby shanty town of Kanak Durga Colony, where working class immigrants have been living since the 1960s, this is the only route to their homes. The stench is now a reminder that home is nearby.

Delhi’s garbage problem is pervasive, except for the tony neighbourhood of Lutyen’s - home to leading politicians and industrialists. The lesser mortals have to contend with the 9,600 tonnes of municipal solid waste that the city generates every day, something that the municipal bodies struggle to dispose. Though the National Green Tribunal (NGT) had asked corporation commissioners to submit schemes to incentivise Resident Welfare Associations to segregate their waste, there is not much movement on the ground.

Delhi's landfills are chock-a-block and the landfills in many of the places including Ghazipur, are almost 50 meters high, double the stipulated height. Run off from here percolates into the groundwater table, while the leachate contaminates the 900-odd water bodies, worsening the city’s water crisis.

Adding to garbage and water problems is the Capital’s air. A WHO report in January on polluted cities of the world revealed that one-third of Delhi's population suffers from respiratory problems and is at higher risk of cardiovascular and respiratory morbidity and mortality.

That Delhi is sitting atop a pollution volcano waiting to explode is well known. It is also clear that doomsday predictions have become veritable clichés in the Capital and its extensive National Capital Region. Alarm bells fail to put its citizens on red alert mode. Every now and then when the smog and the PM2 levels overshoot the danger mark, spreading a dark haze and breathlessness, there is a flurry of activity by the government even as citizens rush to buy masks and air purifiers. But that is just a passing phase -- a blip on the monitor. Then its back to square one.

That the Capital of the country is perhaps the most environmentally hazardous city in the world fails to cut through the chalta hai attitude that underscores virtually every discussion that takes place. Be it about the terrible quality of air that citizens breathe, the abysmal condition of the water bodies that surround the city, the garbage that doesn't get disposed or the vehicles that choke the roads negotiated by the public on a daily basis.

And even as winter gives way to summer, the Capital remains among the top of the country’s pollution index. Its pollution status is still “very poor” and “severe” in different areas on any given day. As the Delhiites prepare for the summer, looming out there are threats of mosquitoes and the dengue.

The solutions too, with hundreds of reports giving the same recommendations every year, are not hard to find. “What we need are better institutional structures and governance models to implement these solutions,” says environment expert Ashish Chaturvedi, who is also the Director, Climate Change at the German development agency GIZ.

Clearly the two are not working in Delhi, as the tussle between the BJP-led Centre and the AAP’s State Government stalls any meaningful attempt.

Take the last winter. Though now forgotten in the swirl of election activity taking place in the country, the end of 2016 and beginning of this year had the NGT crying hoarse for the umpteenth time about danger that stalks the Capital's citizens. It asked the State and Central governments in no uncertain terms, “Have you done a single thing to control pollution? Please mention what you have done to control dust, waste burning, and vehicular emissions... When was your 50 per cent staff on the roads to control air pollution?”

When the Central Pollution Control Board and the Delhi Pollution Control Committee both submitted data from their respective stations for the period December 7 to December 14, NGT was aghast at the variation in the data and asked for an analysis of the contributing factors. In most areas air pollution was “very poor” on the scale while in one – Anand Vihar -- it was “severe”, which means highly toxic.

Instead of considering the situation an emergency and acting on it on a war footing for a long-term solution, the Central and State governments are locked in a blame game and at logger-heads with each other over many governance issues including environmentally sensitive ones. Last year, just after the Diwali festival and the uncontrolled bursting of crackers, Delhi's air quality plummeted to “severe” with a thick layer of toxic smog enveloping the capital. Pollution breached the safe limit by over 17 times in some places. Residents complained of burning and watering eyes, dry throats and a difficulty to breathe. Even Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal called the city a “gas chamber”.

And now nearly three months into 2017, the situation has improved only marginally. Delhi's has become so infamous for its air quality that the organisers of the FIFA under-17 World Cup have expressed apprehension on holding matches here in October.

Rekha Devi lives in Najafgarh, in South-West Delhi. She is studying for the 12th standard NIOS exam. But the 19-year-old’s studies have been hampered by a continuous cough despite medication and all kinds of home remedies. Her mother Sukh Devi said, “Rekha often gets cough during the winter, and doctors attribute it to allergy to dust and pollution. This time, however, they suspected a viral infection.”

Dr Vikram Jaggi, Medical Director at Asthma Chest & Allergy Centre explains the problem. He says pollution is increasing and is linked to how we live. Viral infections in Delhi now last much longer than the stipulated 5-7 days, sometimes for several weeks on end. In children, viral infections were considered normal if they took place twice a year, now it is not considered surprising if children suffer six episodes annually. He points out that the incidence of asthma in Delhi was 2 per cent 30 years ago, today it has gone up to 16 per cent.

“When I started my career it was a given that the maximum lung capacity of Indians was 80 per cent in comparison to 100 per cent in Americans. But now it has gone down to 70 per cent,” Jaggi says, pointing out all that adds to Delhi's pollution - including construction and demolition waste, vehicular, burning of crops in neighbouring states, indoor pollution, home grown industries and the power stations within the city.

However, high awareness about air pollution, especially from the vehicles has not in any way deterred Delhi's educated citizens. They continue to keep more than one car per household and rarely use conserving methods such as car pools. Also, the number of vehicles that enter the city every day is staggering. A cross border traffic survey conducted by Centre for Science and Environment in June last year found that the number of vehicles that enter Delhi every day is almost equal to the number that are registered in the Capital in a year. In 2014-15 around 5.69 lakh vehicles were registered in Delhi, which means around the same number enter every day, giving rise to acute congestion.

While Kejriwal's experiment of allowing odd number and even number cars to ply on alternative days in April last year did provide a feeling of space in the city, it did not do enough for pollution levels. In a recent article Dinesh Mohan, Volvo Chair professor emeritus, IIT Delhi had an interesting suggestion to make. He proposed an annual pollution tax of ₹10 per cc of engine size for all vehicles and a parking fee of ₹100 per day in all offices including those on government property.

Sohail Hashmi, a history buff who conducts heritage walks in Delhi, has another remedy. He feels every municipality should insist that car owners only park on their own property. “People who park in public places like roads or footpaths should be fined prohibitively, making it impossible for citizens to keep a second car.”

Hashmi and environmentalist Manoj Misra of Yamuna Jiye Abhiyan feel the most pressing problem Delhi faces is water. If something is not done fast, there will be an irreversible water crisis in the city. While there is scarcity of drinking water year after year and a need for tankers to be brought in, a single rain floods the city.

“While there are many challenges that the city faces, but amongst others Delhi must value its remaining open spaces including water bodies, in north, west, south and the river floodplain. This is in context of its groundwater recharge, climate change adaptation and prevention of urban flooding,” says Misra.

Last year, the Yamuna was centre-stage of many a controversy. In March, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s Art of Living Foundation organised a massive World Culture Festival on the Yamuna river bank. The NGT came down heavily when the organisation refused to heed to the warnings of the green court. Unfortunately, the Central government too did not intervene to disallow an ecologically unsound event. After the event, the expert committee constituted by the NGT to assess the damage caused by the three-day festival found that the “entire floodplain area used for the main event site (between DND flyover and the Barapulla drain on the right bank of the river) has been completely destroyed, not simply damaged.”Ecologist CR Babu who is helping to develop a river front called the 22-km urban stretch between Wazirabad and Okhla barrages “ecologically dead”. And that is not surprising. The Yamuna passes through four states and Delhi only constitutes 2 per cent of the catchment area, but the city is responsible for 80 per cent of the pollutants that enter the river. As many as 21 drains open into it.

“Millions need not be spent to clean the Yamuna. To clean it you need to clean all the tributaries that have turned into ganda nalas (dirty drains),” says Hashmi. His suggestion is that the administration traps the polluted water flowing from colonies in pipelines built along the course of the drains. At every kilometer or so they set up small treatment plants. Here they treat the water and release it into the river. “The Yamuna will get clean automatically.”

Along with this he advocates clearing the storm drains, disallowing leaves and rubble being swept into them and large scale water harvesting. One of the major pollutants is construction & demolition (C&D) waste comprising broken bricks, concrete and rubble. It clogs the drains and waterways of the city and is one of the main polluters of the Yamuna.

Delhi generates on an average 4,000 MT of C&D per day and though two waste processing plants have been set up in Burari and Shastri Park, they are insufficient to tackle the magnitude of the problem. This brings us to another major issue that plagues the city –- insufficient solid waste management.

Over the years, the Centre for Science and Environment based in Delhi has done extensive research on the city's environment problems and come up with solutions. For tackling solid waste it has recommended an improved policy on collection, segregation of waste, decentralised collection and recycling centres, penalty for littering and lower taxes on recycled products. The question is who will put these in place?

“Why is it so difficult”, asks Hashmi? “The municipality just has to make it compulsory for every house and housing society to segregate garbage. If they don't comply, stop lifting their unsegregated garbage. Only strict action can work.”

'Strict action' may well be the right remedy for the Capital, be it for garbage, traffic, water, or air pollution. Though the Delhi government has taken certain environment cleaning up measures recently like the ban on electricity generator sets run on diesel, petrol or kerosene and the use of disposable plastic glasses in hotels and restaurants, it may be a case of too little.

Ashish Chaturvedi says there is an urgent need to invest in developing structures within the local government that serve the role of system integrators much like what Bureau of Energy Efficiency has done so successfully in the field of energy efficiency. Otherwise, he says, we will keep going around in circles focusing on short term solutions without having any impact in the long term.

“I believe that solutions to the critical challenges of improving air quality, conservation of green spaces as well as access to basic services for the urban poor are well known,” he said. While advocating better institutional structures and governance models to implement these solutions, he reminds that the two should not be confused. “Participation of the local population, giving primacy to decentralised solutions as well as investing in the future through state-supported awareness programmes for children and youth must be initiated at the earliest,” he comments.

The NGT has announced a World Conference on Environment 2017 on 25-26 March at Delhi's Vigyan Bhawan. That hopefully will mirror the urgency required and throw up appropriate solutions.