Capital Punishment: New Delhi’s Deadly Smog

NEW DELHI – On October 31, New Delhi woke up to find it had become a gas chamber.

The celebratory week of Diwali had ended and despite a 20 percent drop in firecracker sales, toxic pollutants hung heavy in the air, leading to the worst smog in the last 17 years. Several media reports compared the Delhi pollution with the infamous London smog.

The Great London Smog of 1952 lasted for five days. Government medical reports estimated that 4,000 people died as a direct result of the smog and 100,000 more fell ill due to the smog's effects.

In New Delhi, however, when it was perhaps appropriate to conduct government surveys about the health impact of the smog, locals, including members of medical bodies and health workers, were forced to queue up in front of banks and ATMs because the government had demonetized the two most-circulated banknotes in India.

Standing in long queues for an average of six hours, everybody forgot about the smog that lasted in Delhi for about five days, stinging the eyes and irritating the respiratory tracts of almost the entire population of 18.6 million, multiple times the population of London in 1952.

The worst came when the air pollution levels spiked post-Diwali on November 2, due to weather conditions over the region. Two days after Diwali night, pollution levels reached alarming heights, with PM10 levels reaching a massive 999, more than 10 times higher than the permissible limit.

An analysis of data from Delhi Pollution Control Committee shows that the levels of PM2.5 increased by 62.7 percent on November 2 as compared to the readings on Diwali. From 12 am to 6 am on November 2, the PM2.5 concentration hit 548 micrograms per cubic meter (cu m), 9 times the standard reading. The following day, PM2.5 concentration from 6 am to 12 noon increased to 696.25 micrograms per cu m – 11.6 times the standard. The hourly averages were as high as 800-900 micrograms per cu m.

The Indian Meteorological Department termed this the worst smog in 17 years. The Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi recorded the worst levels of smog on November 2, with visibility as low as 300-400 meters.

It took residents days to realize that they should be using masks to avoid inhaling the poisonous air. By the time many residents reached medical shops to buy a mask for themselves, they were already sold out. Some medical shops even sold masks on pre-order. According to industry reports, there was a jump of 30-40 percent in the sale of air purifiers. The total market for air purifiers is expected to increase around three times to 100,000 units this year from around 40,000 units last year. Little do people know that while purifiers filter smaller allergens like dust, smoke, chemicals, asbestos, pollen, and pet dander, they are ineffective in the case of many pollutants that New Delhi’s residents are forced to breathe in day after day.

“I was very scared to send my daughter to school. The first days she went to school after Diwali was worse. She came back from school with eye irritation. The school bus reeks of diesel. From day two onwards, I did not send her to school,” said Astha Gupta, a resident of Patparganj and a concerned mother of a 7-year-old.

Nearly 17,000 schools with over a million students running under the three municipal corporations of Delhi were closed on November 5, when their students had already inhaled the toxic mix of air pollutants for six days.

Delhi’s Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal claimed in various press conferences that farmers burning crop stubble or paddy in Haryana, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh were the “real” reason for smog. His claims were substantiated by the satellite images from NASA’s fire mapper. The images showed that incidences of paddy burning in Punjab, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh increased after Diwali (October 30), which contributed to the severe smog.

Meteorological scientists explained that a lower level anticyclone, a weather phenomenon which prevented the dispersion of smog, developed around Delhi on November 2, 2016. There was virtually no wind in the vertical column. This persisted for about three days. Scientists said that the anticyclone and the pollution during Diwali led to such abnormal levels of pollutants lingering.

The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) issued a warning before Diwali that the average wind speed this year on Diwali day was going to be much less than normal – around 1.3 m/s compared to last year’s 3.4 m/s. Also, the mixing height – the height at which the lower atmosphere undergoes mechanical or turbulent mixing, producing a nearly homogeneous air mass – this year was 492 meters whereas in 2015 it was 590 meters. The lower wind speed and mixing height do not allow winds to disperse quickly, leading to a higher concentration of pollutants.

New Delhi became a smokehouse with a thick veil of smog over it for five continuous days, imperiling the health of the residents who had too little time to react and too little information to brace against the catastrophe.

Health Disaster

The seven days of persistent smog filled hospitals. Severe cases of breathlessness, asthma attacks, and allergies rose sharply. It is no secret that inhaling pollutants causes inflammation in the lungs and directly affects the heart and cardiovascular system. When people inhale particulate matter, it passes into the bloodstream and causes damage to the heart and blood vessels. In the city, beyond a spike in fresh cases, people who had been suffering from respiratory ailments suffered the most.

“Some of patients that we are getting are two months old, one year old, five years old. We are seeing a rise of 60-70 percent in ailment cases related to pollution. Breathlessness, asthma, eye, and skin allergies case have increased,” said Dr. Rahul Nagpal, director and head of Pediatrics at Fortis Hospital in Vasant Kunj. Children were more affected, as their immunological development is low and existing infections are taking a longer time to subside, added Nagpal.

The chairman of the department of medicine at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital (SGRH), Dr. S.P. Byotra, said that earlier 15 to 20 percent of ailment cases were reported as pollution-related at their hospital but such cases have gone up to 60 percent after the smog event. There was a significant increase in the number of patients with respiratory and ocular problems at government health care establishments such as Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital.

“Asthma patients with extreme complications are coming quite early this year. We usually get such cases in the later part of the winter season,” said Rajesh Samaria, a respiratory specialist at Ram Manohar Lohia.

According to researchers at the American College of Cardiology, ultrafine air pollutants aggravate pre-existing heart and lung disease. Asthma and reduced life expectancy are also linked to short-term exposure to fine air pollutants. New Delhi breathed these fine pollutants for seven days. Joint studies by Central Pollution Control Board and Chittaranjan National Cancer Research Institute have already demonstrated that every third child in Delhi has impaired lungs.

A.K. Rai, medical superintendent of Safdarjung Hospital and also an otorhinolaryngologist, said that it’s not just lungs and heart that are affected by pollution but the eyes, too. Because of pollution, people are complaining of severe eye allergies.

Empty Promises

On November 1, Deputy Chief Minister of Delhi Manish Sisodia promised aggressive steps to tackle the pollution menace that had raised its head in the city. He held a preparatory meeting with various departments and announced a number of steps to curb pollution. The measures he promised were the use of smoke tappers in crematoriums, and waste management to minimize the emission of methane gas caused by burning at landfill sites. He also promised installation of air purifiers at Anand Vihar, ITO, Sarai Kalen Khan, Kashmere Gate and IIT (Delhi) and All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).

On November 6, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal called an emergency meeting and offered to adopt a “war footing” in the quest to reduce pollution levels. He too, like Sisodia, announced a number of measures to tackle the problem. He announced a ban on construction activity, the shutting of the Badarpur power plant, a ban on the burning of leaves, and the sprinkling and vacuuming of roads.

One of the measures that the chief minister and the deputy chief minister listed at these press conferences – the use of sprinklers and mist fountains at important places in the city – had already been debunked in early October by the city’s Public Works Department. The department had concluded after a detailed study that the project was “unreliable” as the study had not found “anything to establish significant positive results from such projects.”

The Delhi government had been planning to test the project in January when air quality in the city is at its worst. The idea was copied from China. But experts shot the project down, saying China’s model cannot be implemented in Delhi due to climatic differences. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government had collaborated with the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) and IIT (Bombay) to set up the system within 45 days.

The AAP, to show its progressiveness toward tackling the air pollution menace in the capital, also observed an “odd-even” scheme for 15 days. The odd-even scheme was aimed to allow cars with even and odd registration numbers to ply the roads on alternate days. This was meant not just to bring down vehicular congestion on roads but also reduce the level of air pollution. The scheme started in January and was repeated in April 2016 but did not get much response. The scheme was not repeated a third time since the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) told the National Green Tribunal that it did little to improve the air quality in the city.

On November 8, the Supreme Court ordered the central and state governments to come up with a plan to curb pollution within two days. The National Green Tribunal (NGT) banned all construction activity and shut down stone-crushing units and brick kilns for a week in the national capital region. The NGT also came down heavily on the governments of Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh for not implementing orders issued last year to control vehicular pollution, waste burning, crop burning, and construction dust.

However, the chief minister and the deputy chief minister became preoccupied with a political battle over demonetization and rhetoric on the issue of corruption after November 8 and pollution promises were thrown to the winds. The state of Delhi’s ruling party, the AAP, remains at loggerheads with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which rules the central government and instituted demonetization.

An inquiry to Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia’s office met with the same reply that has been read and re-read in several press conferences: “Several steps have been taken to curb the problem of smog including a ban of firecrackers, ban of diesel vehicles, ban on construction activities, and other measures.”

In the name of smog, the blame game between states in northern India continues. Delhi blames Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, and Haryana for burning paddy straw that, according to official statements, led to smog. Other states blame the capital and the national capital region for vehicular pollution and industry emissions.

The Debate Goes on

The World Health Organization (WHO) released a survey in 2014 in which Delhi was found to have the most polluted air in the world. The survey also pointed out that India has the world’s highest death rate from respiratory diseases, with 159 per 100,000 in 2012. This is around twice that of China, whose capital, Beijing, is also on the list of the world’s most polluted cities.

The survey measured PM2.5, the most dangerous small particulates, in Delhi’s air and found that levels touched an annual average of 153 micrograms per cubic meter, six times what the WHO calls permissible and twice the amount that the Indian government considers safe. In the same year, the Environmental Preference Index ranked India 155th out of 178 countries for air quality.

Worse, due to normal climatic conditions and crop burning, there is a significant spike in the pollution level during winter each year. Winters also usher in festivals, including Diwali, during which the air pollution levels rise further. Every year, scientists warn of such alarming levels of pollution and due to several awareness drives, the use of firecrackers went down by 20 percent in 2016.

Scientists have repeatedly pointed out that the burning of crop residue in the neighboring states – Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, and Haryana – was one of the reasons for worsening air quality in the capital. Farmers in neighboring states, after harvesting crops in September, typically burn residue in the month of October to prepare the fields for wheat in late November.

Despite several meetings held by representatives of the Environmental Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority (EPCA) under the Delhi government with representatives from Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, and Haryana in last two years, the practice could not be stopped.

Dushyant Naagar, the spokesman of Kisan Sangharsh Samiti, a farmers’ body, says that people have to resort to burning crop residue because the subsidy that the states governments used to give farmers for equipment to collect residue has been reduced.

“The subsidy given by the Central government earlier was Rs. 400,000 for machines like rotovators that are used to collect residue. Now it has been reduced to Rs. 50,000,” says Naagar. Despite several awareness drives against burning crop residues, the practice continues unabated in the states.

To add to the woes, Delhi’s rising number of vehicles also increased air pollution levels in the city. In November 2014, the National Green Tribunal passed a ruling to ban all vehicles over 15 years old in Delhi and neighboring states, but the order was not implemented.

Once again, in 2015, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) banned diesel-run vehicles over 10 years old in Delhi and the neighboring states. The new order expected to cover around 1.19 million private diesel cars and about 35,000 commercial vehicles (these were registered before Delhi made clean natural gas compulsory for commercial vehicles). The ban also restricted about 10,000 cars registered in Noida and Ghaziabad from entering Delhi.

Delhi authorities need to enforce tighter emissions standards for vehicles and fuel taxes, argued Vivek Chattopadhyay from the Center for Science and Environment (CSE). About 45 percent of cars in Delhi are diesel-run and pollution from one diesel car is equal to about seven petrol cars, he said.

India’s environmentalists have called for an increase in the price of diesel to reduce its use but such demands meet strong opposition from farmers, who use diesel to run irrigation pumps. After all, India’s economy is still largely agricultural.

While car manufacturing lobbies use this argument to their benefit they also say that a diesel vehicle ban would only be effective if it is imposed countrywide and not just in the northern states of India.

“If the ban is not implemented nationwide, old vehicles will be phased out in Delhi and neighboring states [but] would be resold in other states and continue polluting the air,” says Vishnu Mathur, director general of the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM).

It’s not just vehicular pollution, either. India has done little to reduce pollution from energy generation. Despite having been pressured to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in international climate change dialogues, India continues using coal as its main source of power generation. The coal generation capacity of the country has increased by 73 percent in the last five years and the plan, till 2022, is to add 110 GW to the existing generation capacity. India is world’s third largest emitter of GHGs and coal burning is the biggest contributor to GHG emissions in the country.

The government advocated the use of coal, stating that it is the cheapest source of electricity. That argument fails to take into account the medical costs an average person has to bear to treat respiratory diseases caused by coal burning, nor does the government considers the loss of productivity due to these diseases.

On December 9, 2016, Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Anupriya Patel quoted a 2013 report by the World Bank and said that the health costs for Indians of the alarming levels of air pollution is estimated at 3 percent of India’s GDP. The total damage caused by environmental degradation amounts to Rs. 375 trillion annually (5.7 percent of India’s GDP). Patel presented these estimates before the Lok Sabha while answering a question, further intensifying the debate over the need for cleaner air.

A Way Out

While the state government in Delhi and the central government have failed to take effective action at the ground level, despite being lambasted by the highest court of the country, scientists have come forward with possible solutions to tackle smog.

A scientist from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Moshe Alamaro, and a former professor of Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, I.V. Muralikrishna, are planning to pilot a project under which decommissioned jet engines would be used to disrupt temperature inversion, the meteorological phenomena that traps pollutants just above the ground and causes smog.

According to the scientists, turbojets would be placed close to a power plant and will form powerful updrafts and disrupt the winter inversion. The scientists claim to have drawn inspiration from an experiment done 45 years ago in the Baltics and say that a single jet engine can dispel the smog generated by a coal power plant of 1,000 MW capacity. How and in what capacity the project would be piloted is yet to be known.

Other scientists, from Karnataka Veterinary, Animal, and Fisheries Sciences University, have also offered a solution by proposing ways to stop the burning of crop residue and use it as edible fodder. The scientists have developed processes to convert crop residue into nutritious fodder that cattle would readily eat.

Chandrapal Singh, a nutrition scientist and former registrar of the university, says that farmers burn crop residue because cattle do not eat it. The scientists have not just discovered ways to convert the residue of various crops into nutritious fodder but also tested ways of producing it on both a small and large scale.

“We would be happy to share this cost-effective formula with farmers and government,” he said. However, they had not been contacted by the Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, or Punjab governments as of this writing.

“Apart from restrictions on truck entry, no other action has been initiated. Use of public transport, walking, cycling, and parking restraints should have been promoted,” says Anumita Roychowdhury, executive director (research and advocacy) at the Center for Science and Environment.

Delhi needs strong action to protect people from such deadly exposure, says Roychowdhury. The Delhi government should immediately step up its public outreach efforts, publicizing evidence and health alerts to inform people about the harmful effects of smog and push for innovative action. Delhi needs an effective winter pollution mitigation plan that can make a difference, she adds.

Sadly, the issue has died a natural death with the Delhi government claiming on December 10 that pollution level in the city is “in the normal range.”

According to a Delhi government statement, the analysis of data generated by  the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC)’s ambient air quality network did not observe any major change in the concentration of particulate matter.

“Though the concentration exceeds the prescribed standard, but it is in the normal range observed in the last few years,” the statement read. The statement was issued by state Environment Minister Imran Hussain after a meeting of officials of the DPCC.

And so, the residents of New Delhi will continue to face the punishment of living in the capital.