A 13-year-old child has just spent the weekend in an ICU. On her way home from school, she nearly stopped breathing in the car. She's now home, armed with nebulizers and heavy medication, recuperating from what doctors say was an acute asthma attack and respiratory distress triggered by Delhi's toxic air. Her father, who spent the weekend with her in hospital, says the emergency room was teeming with children like his own, struggling to breathe, struggling to fight unending wheezing and, at the very least, persistent coughs.
Any attempt to improve the capital city's air quality and indeed quality of life must be welcomed, appreciated and supported by its citizens in its entirety. But - yes, there is a but- as a concerned resident and journalist, my fears are many. A plan to cut down the number of cars on the road every day with the new "odd-even" scheme is an ambitious one. To implement it effectively requires an equally ambitious ramping up of public transport, mass transit systems and awareness campaigns for citizens who've thrived for decades on connections and the ability to flout rules. For Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to say the plan will be enforced for a trial period from 8 am to 8 pm only and then reviewed smacks of knee-jerk thinking and lazy populist politics.
Yes, Delhi's status is beyond that of an emergency. The warning signs have been around for years. And every government, in an attempt to appear to be addressing health and sanitation concerns, has been responsible for precisely the mess we find ourselves in today. The Bus Rapid Transit system (BRT) experiment is a case in point. Kilometres away from the leafy avenues of Lutyens Delhi- the postcard-pretty capital to the outside world- Delhi's ''
aam aadmi'' suffers the aftermath of a half-baked pilot project. In 2007, when vehicular congestion and pollution was already touching alarming levels in the capital, the then Congress government under Sheila Dixit decided to try out a BRT system on a 2.5 km stretch south of the Outer Ring Road. While the model may have been based on Bogota's super successful system, the project failed to take one critical principle into account: for a mass transit system to be effective, governments have to first spend the money to create a scale that will ensure both a smooth flow of traffic through a network of roads as well as greater connectivity for commuters. Delhi's BRT project did neither. A report in 2012 by the Central Road Research Institute says it didn't factor in an inadequate road width, the unchecked use of BRT lanes by private vehicles that don't adhere to even basic practices like sticking to their lanes, and immobilized lane dividers. As a commuter on the BRT, I can tell you the chaos was compounded by something that defied basic common sense - synchronized and turn-specific lights. The world over, in order to keep traffic moving, stop lights are timed at anywhere from 45 seconds to one and a half minutes. The Chiragh Delhi crossing does the opposite- by releasing traffic for barely two minutes and a red light that lasts well over seven minutes the last time I timed it. So we have a stop light that backs up traffic for kilometres, keeping engines running idle, adding to the pollution.
Delhi's metro is still creating its network of connectivity. Its officials have said the new alternate day policy will require at least three more carriages per train to ease the congestion on trains through the day. The absence of hubs to change trains and a huge connection gap along both the Ring Road and Outer Ring Road means its use is still limited to those who live and work along or close to the existing lines.
To make things worse, the National Capital Region has not been able to curb the number or the entry of heavy vehicles - trucks- onto the roads. According to the Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) authority, pollution in the city is at its peak when trucks are allowed in. They account for 60 percent of particulate matter and nitrogen oxide that we are all breathing. According to an official survey, nearly half the trucks that enter are not actually destined for Delhi. The imposition of a tax on them makes no real difference. What is needed is the by-pass, arterial roads - promised by many governments and acted on by none. A foundation stone has been laid for the Western Expressway, but literally and metaphorically, it's a long road ahead.
The Delhi government recently blamed Punjab for burning agricultural waste and causing the thick smog over the city. But within its own area of control, what is the Delhi government going to do about burning garbage across the massive landfills across the capital? Again, solutions for waste management need to be implemented on scale for a real difference to be made.
I can think of a few things that need to change in Delhi to make our living space more healthy and habitable for the millions who live beyond the Lutyens zone. Some are:
- Banning vehicles older than ten years
- Imposing heavy duties on the purchase of new cars
- Restricting the number of vehicles per household (this needs to be done by address, rather than the buyers' name)
- Charging for public parking (even inside gated colonies)
- Making fines for violators prohibitively expensive
- Phasing out diesel vehicles and jumping to Euro VI standards for new cars
Unlike the re-structuring of the BRT, building by-pass roads or increasing metro connectivity, these are not measures that require massive investment or vast infrastructure. But they require a change in mindset of the
Dilli-wala. The "aspirational middle class" is not the one riding the overburdened buses or the metro. They are the ones cracking jokes that are going viral about odd and even numbered plates. The government needs to ensure that this measure doesn't in fact increase the sale of cars every day so that those who can afford it have vehicles with both odd and even number plates at their disposal. It also needs to protect licensing authorities from pressure from these same people to issue plates of odd and even numbers on demand.
Rahul Bajaj, leading auto manufacturer in the country, said to our reporters that Delhi's crisis is so acute that we need to act immediately or be prepared to die. The odd and even number plan has its heart in the right place. As a woman, a driver and a single car owner myself, I pledge to do my bit to implement the policy, irrespective of lazy arguments - from women's safety to inconvenience and everything in between - by those who've petitioned against it in the Delhi High Court. But as a concerned citizen, in a city that has thrived on "
mai-baap" culture and a flaunting of wealth, I fear it will encourage all those who can afford to flout it to do so.
Most importantly, it worries me that AAP's leadership seems so blithe about scrapping it if it doesn't work in a trial period. We can't give up so easily. That kind of politics we can all do without.
(
Maya Mirchandani is Senior Editor, Foreign Affairs - NDTV)
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of NDTV and NDTV does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.