Air Pollution: Biggest victim in the saga are the Delhi citizens
Even before Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal announced on Thursday the second round of the odd-even scheme to be made operational during April 15-30, the stormy and rather ill-informed debate over air quality in Delhi took a dramatic turn earlier this week. On Sunday, Jaguar Land Rover CEO Ralf Speth had said that a modern Euro-6 diesel engine emits cleaner air than it sucks in a city like Delhi.
In effect, Speth took on the Supreme Court that, in early January, had witheringly asked automobile manufacturers who want the ban on their larger diesel cars to be revoked whether their diesel vehicles ‘emitted oxygen’. Speth has alarmed environmental fundamentalists blind to the scientifically established fact that diesel cars are only a small factor in determining Delhi’s air quality, with geography contributing heavily to particulates flowing into the region. The biggest victim in this drama is the citizen who wants to buy a car, a necessity given the pathetic state of public transport.
But before buying, it would be a good idea to consult a lawyer — or, even better, an astrologer. Going by the way some activists are misleading authorities, there’s no way you can anticipate when your car will suddenly be declared illegal and polluting. This isn’t because of what your car emits or what scientists at the IIT say.
It is on the dogma regarding the number of years your car has run, or its engine capacity — an outdated concept since smaller engines with more power are hitting ‘more careful, cleaner’ European markets. Citizens are worried and confused because one tribunal abruptly decided that a 10-year-old diesel car is criminally polluting and should be banned.
Another well-meaning authority decided that new diesel cars should not be registered for some time. Who knows, two years after you buy a car, some authority may order that only electric cars can run in Delhi and Mumbai. Acar buyer, therefore, has a humble request to ministers, courts, tribunals and environmentalists: you are very wise and well-meaning. Just let me know what kind of car I should buy, and please be consistent. I struggle to pay instalments, so I’m terrified of the thought that my car may be suddenly yanked off the road.
Allowing odd- and even-numbered cars on alternate days needs to be applied thoughtfully after judicial scrutiny. People whose children don’t have access to school buses will need to buy a cheap second car. Environazis may say that a five-year-old should take public transport to school, or urge a Class 12 girl to take a public bus as her board exam is held at an external centre that does not provide school buses. People will ignore such advice and buy a second car. But who knows? Some authority may ban owning two cars.
People cannot live with this uncertainty. So far, car restrictions have not helped improve air quality, even as taxi drivers and autorickshaw owners prospered. Pollution-control authorities and scientists say car restrictions had only a small impact on air quality, which actually deteriorated due to other factors when half the vehicles were off the roads for two weeks last month. A scientist from an official body told a court that distant dust storms will always keep Delhi polluted.
The Central Pollution Control Board also did not find any obvious benefit of road restrictions, stating that “the meteorology and emissions from other polluting sources have been major factors impacting air quality of Delhi during the period”. The board also cited an IIT study to show that the contribution of cars to pollution is barely 10%. Of this, 10-year-old cars would be a tiny fraction. Data also shows that pollution had declined in 2015.
But who cares for what scientists say? Much before any scientific data was available, the media quoted selective environmentalists saying that car restrictions had reduced pollution. Data subsequently showed that for various non-car factors, pollution rose in that period. Some campaigners even went on to say that data-gatherers probably parked their instruments in relatively cleaner parts of the city!
In response to Speth, a leading environmentalist declared that carmakers should not be allowed to push dieselisation, which is raising the level of nitrogen oxides and ozone. This argument is much more polluted than Delhi’s air — which, for the record, generally has safe levels of both ozone and nitrogen oxides. And auto companies are not dieselworshippers.
The government forced companies, like Maruti Suzuki, to adopt diesel by keeping the fuel artificially cheap. Unless some environmentalists took huge favours from previous governments, they should be baying for the blood of past oil ministers who distorted the fuel market, and of authorities who fixed emission norms that the industry followed.
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