Delhi Smog Rises: Experts Demand Enforcement, Not Just Plans
With pollution climbing across Delhi, the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) has come into force. Environmentalist Bhavreen Kandhari has weighed in on the rising pollution and the Air Quality Index (AQI) in the capital.
Kandhari told IANS on Wednesday that such an action plan arrives every year. What is different this year is that it was discussed and started earlier than the usual timeline.
Environment Minister Manjinder Singh Sirsa of Delhi has been prominent on the issue, promoting a 'winter action plan'. Discussions of this kind have happened in recent years too, yet the present approach is being examined from a new angle. Stricter regulations are being proposed, and the real challenge lies in how they will be carried out.
In her view, if there are not enough people on the ground, the plan cannot function well. She cited border checkpoints, where stopping vehicles could hold up lakhs of them. She also noted that inspection staff are few and have not been trained specifically for the task.
Kandhari asked whether construction violations are being tackled by any quick reaction team. Filing complaints, she said, currently takes a long time before anything is done.
She emphasised that during the period between a complaint and action, pollution does not pause. Rather, it continues. Enforcing rules firmly is the most crucial step, and it should be combined with a structured programme running all year. Reducing local emissions must become a mission so that geography-driven pollution can be substantially cut.
According to her, burning firecrackers, lighting garbage heaps and boosting industrial output would make the city's pollution far more hazardous and could amount to a major calamity. She stated that firecrackers offer no positive contribution and have nothing to do with religious feeling. She said she does not understand how people connect the two, since fireworks are at most a way to celebrate or express excitement.
She also observed that school awareness campaigns are teaching children to keep away from firecrackers. Kandhari described the city as a pollution-filled container whose top is shut.
She maintained that there is no escape from pollution right now. Temperatures will fall further over the next few weeks, so such a major error should be avoided. Pollution can rise sharply in a single evening, and its particles stay in the air for weeks and months. The law, she added, is clear, and the issue is not limited to Diwali. Christmas, Dussehra, Gurpurab, political rallies and cricket matches all see fireworks that add to pollution, making such practices inappropriate.