Delhi government’s funda to tackle smog

On Dec 4, 2018

Delhi: NP NEWS 24 ONLINE- A city caught between federal, state and local government responsibilities where coordination on even routine matters is slow, India’s smog- capital has become a symbol of the country’s struggle to contain a deadly haze that kills an estimated 1.1 million citizens every year.

The government has pledged millions of dollars and deployed extra teams to improve enforcement of existing environmental laws that include banning farmers from burning their fields. But the sheer scale of India’s toxic skies makes progress difficult.

Power and Transportation official in Delhi government, Varsha Joshi along with her team this year has issued roughly 16,000 fines for ‘visible pollution’ compared to less than 6,000 in the same period last year, and around 8,000 tickets for drivers failing to have an up-to-date pollution certificate -double last year’s figures. She also helped shut down the coal-fired Badarpur power plant on Delhi’s outskirts.

She believes that it is an uphill battle and it feels that they are doing something important to save the environment.

Joshi also requests for 60 new cars for transport officers who took 18 months to wind its way through the system, and she only ended up with 27. Her attempt to order low-floor buses for Delhi’s struggling public transit network stalled as well as follow up to procure standard-floor buses went all the way the Supreme Court after it was challenged by a disability activist.

“I’m hoping by next year we’ll be able to talk about quantitative targets, which still hasn’t happened,” she added.

Research scientist Hiren Jethva of the Universities Space Research Association at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre explained that according to the satellite data, there is a 5% growth observed in fires this year in the peak burning season between October to November that last year as farmers still continues to set thousands of fires.

While environmental activists believe that Prime Minister Narendra Modi needs to take more action on air pollution, and should add more powerful bureaucrats such as Joshi for India’s less-visible measures to reduce smog.