Safe air isn’t an impossible aim: Given the administrative will, here’s what could be done right away

Air pollution in the National Capital Region (NCR) continues to dominate headlines this winter, highlighting the absence of any long-term strategy to deal with a deadly subject that is affecting millions of lives in and around India’s capital. Of growing concern is the fact that most other urban areas in India beyond the NCR are also generating increasing levels of air pollution, with the number of ‘good’ air quality days trending towards zero.

Sadly, while all arms of government at various levels fail at even creating an illusion of solutions, attempts to distract the general populace by whipping up sentiments on nationalism (rejection of World Health Organization standards on air quality), religion (allowing the use of ‘green’ crackers on festivals) and culture (recall the massive traffic jams during the festive season and the use of crackers through the year on every ‘joyous’ occasion) muddy the air. Further distraction is provided by the advocacy of poorly-thought out, end-of-pipe solutions such as cloud-seeding or water-spraying, which only help shirk responsibility for hard regulations.

Not only do these fail to provide an effective solution but could even aggravate environmental and health impacts. There has been no meaningful debate on the use of water sprinklers in this water-scarce region, nor on the quality of water being used and the associated equity and health impacts.

Similarly, the adverse effects of cloud-seeding are well documented and severe enough to warrant a very serious evaluation of its deployment. Our lack of aspiration on providing good quality air is visible in our air quality index (AQI), which serves to numb the populace on the severity of health impacts.