The monsoon is retreating. The evening air has a nip. The kharif is being harvested. All of these turn of the season events herald gloom for north India, specially Delhi. This means that the fields in nearby states are being cleared of crop stubble by fire. Smog is just around the corner, and it is not even Diwali, yet. NASA has already started releasing satellite pictures of crop fires in Haryana and Punjab. Clearly, the choking of previous years, and all promises of taking action to clear the air have not resulted in much.
Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar on Tuesday announced that environment ministers from the five affected states—Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan—would have a virtual meeting on Thursday, along with officials from the environment ministry and pollution control board officials, to discuss the way forward this year. He said that ensuring a clean air during the winter months required coordinated efforts between the states and the Centre, and that this attempt should be allowed to go ahead without indulging in politics. All the states and the various agencies know what has to be done and how it has to be done, he said.
The minister said that in 2016, the Centre had come up with various short, medium- and long-term plans by the various agencies and states, and the meeting would review the progress in these plans. He said that 50 teams of the Central Pollution Control Board were deployed last year to crack down on places where the air pollution control norms were being flouted, the meeting would also hear about the experiences of these teams.
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Javadekar listed the various efforts made to control air pollution—from promulgating a set of rules for disposal of construction and demolition waste to opening up the peripheral express highways so that the 60,000 trucks not bound for Delhi could bypass the capital.
The winter smog in Delhi, has become a huge issue ever since the post-Diwali black air day in 2016. Schools have had to declare smog offs to keep children out of exposure. There are a number of factors which create this smog, especially in November. The geography of the land, and the fact that winds stop at this time of the year, lead to the accumulation of air pollutants, which is only worsened by the temperature inversion in winter. Stubble burning aggravates an already bad situation. However, vehicular pollution, industrial pollution and construction activity, all contribute to the bad air.
This year, with COVID-19 raging, the bad air might worsen respiratory ailments in the population. The pandemic-induced lockdowns earlier this year, ironically, showed how clean the capital's air could get, once the industries were shut and vehicles off road.
In a year that has battered the people in many ways, what will the winter of 2020 be like? In a few weeks, it will become clear whether the actions the government is taking have made any difference.
