On several occasions in the past five years, the Supreme Court has said that the Right to Clean Air is essential to the Right to Life. On Wednesday, the Court referred to this Fundamental Right once again while upbraiding the Centre and the governments of Delhi and its neighbouring states for failing to ensure a pollution-free environment in the Capital and its adjoining areas.
NCR residents have been breathing “very poor” quality air for the past four days. The problem, as the SC pointed out, stems from an unfortunate lack of resolve from both the Centre and state governments. The data does show that seasonal stubble burning — one reason for the pollution spike before winter — has come down in some parts of Delhi’s neighbourhood. However, the gravity of the problem is such that incremental changes are insufficient to make an appreciable difference in air quality.
The SC was especially scathing of the Centre and state governments for their failure to effectively implement the more than three-year-old Commission on Air Quality Management (CAQM) Act. The Act had created an eponymous panel, the CAQM, to coordinate between different agencies whose functions have a bearing on the NCR’s air quality. In the past, the problem would get compounded because these agencies would often work in silos, and at cross purposes. Delhi, Haryana and Punjab used to be at loggerheads on the issue of stubble burning.
In 2022, after the AAP assumed office in Punjab, there were hopes that the state government would coordinate better with its counterpart in Delhi in resolving the longstanding problem. However, politics continues to have its say on government-level conversations on the issue. After 2022, the needle of the Delhi government’s accusation has pointed towards Haryana and now Uttar Pradesh, even as the data continues to implicate all three states.
On Wednesday, the apex court again called out the Punjab and Haryana governments for their failure to check farmers from setting crop residue on fire. The problem also is that the CAQM has failed its mandate of driving change in the post-harvest practices of farmers in Delhi’s neighbourhood. The agency has scarcely taken a meaningful step to bring all parties to the negotiating table. It has, at best, functioned as an emergency resolution body, when the problem at hand requires round-the-year vigilance.
Though crop-residue burning is a seasonal phenomenon, nudging farmers to desist from the practice should not be left to the last minute. The limits of enforcing punitive measures, post-harvest, should have been evident from the experience of recent years. Similarly, emergency measures are inadequate to address most other factors that drive NCR’s pollution, including vehicular and industrial pollution.
It’s time policymakers recognise that the biggest elephant in the room is Delhi’s baseline pollution load. Cleaning it will require technological interventions, more investments in public transport as well as nudging people to make behavioural changes. All this cannot be undertaken in an emergency mode.
