The average citizen of Delhi loses a decade of his/her life to pollution. How can we turn this around?

The results of a recent study by the University of Chicago, titled Air Quality Life, estimated that on an average, Indians lose almost 5.2 years of their life expectancy to pollution, second only to Bangladeshis, who lose 6.2 years. But the impact is not uniform across the country with citizens in the capital city losing over nine years of life expectancy, thanks to Delhi’s horrible particulate air pollution. Several steps have been taken by the Centre and the State Government to reduce the impact but they aren’t enough. For example, there has been a move to minimise vehicular pollution through the introduction of Bharat Stage-VI emission norms and the rapid construction of the Eastern and Western Peripheral Expressways that form an outer Outer Ring Road along Delhi’s boundaries. But it has been the colossal failure to rein in the farmers, who light up their fields to get rid of crop stubble, that has worsened matters and turned our winters the most toxic. Furthermore, rampant corruption has allowed real estate and infrastructure developers, big and small, to get away despite their poor storage of construction material, particularly sand and cement. Inability to act on the real culprits has made things much, much worse.

The winter of 2020 will likely be a lot better, thanks to a reduction in economic activity that will reduce electricity demand from polluting coal-fired plants, lead to less vehicular movement and stricter implementation of “anti-burning” norms in fields. Yet, this study should set alarm bells ringing for both the Central Government and various State Governments. Inability to provide the citizens with clean air to breathe is a huge governance failure. There also has to be a realisation of the fact that poor air quality will impact poorer households more and those without cars or air purifiers will breathe in worse air with their lives impacted far more harshly. Of course, the Narendra Modi Government’s push towards renewable power and various schemes announced by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal did improve matters slightly. But we should not get used to poor air quality and demand that our elected representatives do a lot better. In Delhi and elsewhere across India.