Pollution is not a problem that the courts can solve

Just how bad the pollution problem is in Delhi was brought home to me in a dramatic and personal fashion when I flew from Chennai to Delhi on Friday. When I departed from Chennai, monsoon rains were gently washing the city, and Chennai’s air quality index showed a suspended particulate matter (SPM) level in the twenties. When I landed in Delhi, the place was enveloped in an acrid, choking smog, the SPM level was in the 400s, and my sinuses immediately clogged shut.

With Diwali round the corner, people with respiratory problems are literally cowering indoors, anticipating the worst. If more smoke is blown in from the burning fields of stubble in Punjab and Haryana, and if the great Indian public decides to ignore both legal bans and social appeals (as it has done in the past) and celebrate with the usual noisy, smoky firecrackers, some of those with acute problems might literally be facing a death sentence.

Steps taken by the judiciary

Something clearly had to be done. Somebody had to act. And someone did. As usual, with both the elected and administrative arms of government failing to come up with tangible solutions, it was left to the judiciary to do something. The Supreme Court did do something: it has prohibited the plying of diesel vehicles that are over 10 years old and petrol vehicles that are over 15 years old in the National Capital Region.

Actually, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) had imposed such a ban as far back as in April 7, 2015, but clearly nobody was implementing this very seriously. After being pulled up by the Supreme Court, though, the Delhi government told the court that it had struck off nearly 40 lakh such vehicles off the registry, which means that these vehicles will no longer be able to legally ply on the roads. At one stroke, this will make a dramatic and immediate difference to the traffic problem as well as pollution levels in the NCR.

That order was just the latest in a long series of orders and directives by the Supreme Court to try to check the rampant rise in pollution levels in Delhi caused by a toxic mix of vehicular emissions, emissions from thermal power plants, construction dust and open burning of refuse along with seasonal additions like fine dust blowing in from the Thar desert during some summer months and smoke from burning field stubble in neighbouring States, especially in October and November.

The courts have intervened dozens of times over the past couple of decades to somehow curb this relentless rise in pollution, which has left Delhi with the distinction of being the world’s most polluted city. Starting from 1998, when it first imposed a ban on all public transport vehicles using diesel as a fuel and ordered them to convert to CNG, it has taken all kinds of steps. It has imposed a restriction on the plying of commercial goods vehicles in the day time, ordered the phasing out/banning of commercial vehicles over 20, 17 and 15 years old within different time frames, ordered stopping the sale of unleaded oil and loose 2T engine oil, directed an increase in the number of CNG outlets in the capital and even ordered the construction of bypass roads and a new inter-State bus terminus for the city. Now, the court has also said that no Bharat Stage-IV vehicle shall be sold across the country with effect from April 1, 2020. These are all measures that the government should have taken.

That all these measures have failed to have any kind of significant or long-term impact on Delhi’s pollution levels shows that trying to solve society-level problems through court orders, that too without an administrative set-up that is capable and willing to implement such orders, is simply going to fail. Two years ago, the NGT had directed commercial vehicles entering Delhi to pay an environment compensation charge to the government. To this the administration simply responded later that it was unable to collect this charge. And despite deregistering 40 lakh vehicles at one stroke now, reports indicate that the number of cars that have been impounded are far too few.

Tackle the root causes

There is another problem when courts intervene in such technical areas — sometimes, one tends to miss the wood for the trees. For instance, diesel as a fuel has been demonised, although there are specific diesel engines which pollute less than petrol engines. Likewise, a 10-year-old diesel engine car might be far less polluting than a poorly maintained one-year-old diesel taxi. Likewise, banning registration of non-BS-VI vehicles is akin to your income tax being deducted at source — it simply reflects the tax department’s bid to cover up its inability to collect by shifting the responsibility somewhere else. There is no point running an odd-even vehicle scheme when the root cause of stubble burning remains unaddressed. Pollution is a societal problem which calls for cohesive administrative action and behavioural change on the part of the public. It cannot be fixed through court orders.