Need political will to fight Delhi pollution

Three news reports in this newspaper on Tuesday need to be read together to realise why Delhi is increasingly becoming an unliveable city. Even as air quality data showed Delhi didn’t record a single good air day in 2023 — this last happened in 2018 — the Supreme Court read the riot act to agencies responsible for governance and law and order in the national capital for their failure to implement the ban on the sale and use of firecrackers. Meanwhile, a political slugfest has broken out over the state of the Yamuna, on the eve of the Chhath festival. What connects the state of Delhi’s air and its river is the attitude of the city administration and citizens towards both.

Numerous court and National Green Tribunal directives on cleaning up the city’s air and the Yamuna have been flouted by everyone. Delhi’s residents and authorities have a ready list of blame — crop stubble burning to mala fide action by neighbouring states, which have some merit, of course — to absolve themselves of the city’s unbreathable air and unusable water. The noxious fumes of firecrackers, dumping of untreated waste and festival residue are overlooked, even justified in the name of faith and traditions. There is a callous disregard underlining this attitude that insists the city isn’t the custodian of its environment.

The judiciary is doing its best to remind Delhi of the catastrophe it is facing. There is data that points to the health hazards of bad air and a polluted river, including those that will likely manifest in the long term ­­— a portion of the greens that arrive in the city markets are cultivated on the Yamuna flood plains downstream, irrigated by the toxic flow in the river. A political consensus has to emerge on both counts and a campaign launched to rescue the city from falling into the pollution abyss. The solutions, however complex they may be, are available. It is the political will to implement them that needs to be dredged up.

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