The Great Smog of Delhi

Hanoz Dilli dur ast – “Delhi is still far away” says the famous Persian saying. But no, the city is not really very distant. You just can’t see it clearly right now due to smog.

An Army Camp on the Frontline

Geographically and industrially, the capital of India is positioned like an army camp on the frontline. It sprawls through hot flatlands with no greater green area in its immediate vicinity to provide it with lungs. Delhi thus stands exposed on all sides. To the north stands the Great Wall of India: the Himalayas. Once the snows engulf even the lower mountain ranges in the winter, cold winds batter Delhi, leaving its warmth-accustomed denizens shivering. The winter season also mean the arrival of fog that mixes with the city’s smog.

Delhi is very densely populated and carries its share of industrial production; both aspects are shared by neighboring regions as well. To its east lies Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, which would easily be one the world’s most populous countries if it were independent (199 million people according to the 2011 census).

To Delhi’s west and northwest lie the rich states of Punjab and Haryana, famous for their agriculture but with strong industrial sectors as well. Once a year, after the autumn harvest is cut, farmers burn the stubble and the rising smoke strengthens the smog in nearby cities (though it is not for me to measure how much this is responsible for the overall smog level).

And for dessert there comes the desert. To the southwest of Delhi lies the hot state of Rajasthan, occupied partially by the Thar desert. From there, and from the further desert regions of Pakistan, blows the unrelenting hot and dry Loo wind, which descends upon the city like an ancient aggressor every May and June, carrying with it an army of sand particles.

When these winds wind down, July announces the starts of the monsoon season. The rains may lash much of north India from July to September, thus dampening the dust, but before the winds bring the rain clouds, they often kick up dust storms (aptly called Kali Andhi, or “black storm,” in Hindi).

India and China, the world’s two most populated countries, hold the unwanted record of having the highest number of the world’s 15 most polluted cities in terms of PM2.5 levels, according to the 2016 WHO report. Among this “Black Fifteen,” there are three Chinese cities (Shijiazhuang, Baoding, and Xingtai) and seven Indian cities, and most of them are in north India (Kanpur, Delhi, Ludhiana, Patna, Allahabad, Gwalior, and Raipur).

…And It's Hard to See a Candle in the Thick November Smog…

In India, smog is particularly visible around November when the cold, moist air coalesces as fog (and when stubble is being burned). This November has been particularly difficult and images of Delhi circulated in the media have shown a city vanished into the clouds.

The pollution level skyrocketed above all permissible limits. While these limits should be 60 micrograms per cubic meter for PM2.5 and 100 for PM10, during the worst November smog the number for PM2.5 was 999. That was not the actual amount; the measuring instruments can only display up to three digits. This time around, the pollution was too much even for the machines. The internet has already dubbed this event in history as the Great Smog of Delhi (but let’s see if this rather grandiose and undeserving name will hold).

Even apart from November, the situation is not ideal. In recent years, even the annual WHO reports on Delhi’s air pollution suggested that it had often crossed the 100 or even 200 benchmark for PM2.5.

I am writing these words on November 24, in the afternoon in India, long after the “Great Smog” has receded. The New Delhi U.S. Embassy air quality index, considered one of the most authoritative and independent sources in this regard, nevertheless reports the PM2.5 level at 316, considered “hazardous.”

Most of this smog is of course man-made: construction, industry, traffic, and people. And, of course, the problem is not India’s alone. One can find the air in the cities of East Asia as hard to breathe as in the capital of India (and having lived in both Delhi and Seoul I can attest to this). Moreover, to be fair, one sees people wearing masks in China, South Korea, and Japan every day, while in Delhi it is not such a regular sight, apart from the periods such as in early November 2017. Even Warsaw has experienced the rising air pollution awareness campaign in the last years (though the level of smog is, of course ,not comparable to Delhi, it’s reportedly among the more troubling spots across Europe). Thus, while India or Delhi should not be singled out, the problem in India’s capital is acute and needs immediate solutions.

It’s Even Odd: the ‘Odd-Even’ Formula and Other Solutions

In the last few years, politicians in Delhi have begun highlighting the pollution issue. Arvind Kejriwal, Delhi’s chief minister, has been brutally honest about the November smog: the city has become a “gas chamber,” he claimed. As for temporary measures, schools and construction sites were ordered to close during the worst of the November smog. Operations at the coal-powered Badarpur Thermal Power Station, located in the southern corner of the city and considered one of the main culprits of pollution, was also temporarily halted. Commercial trucks were not allowed in the capital, apart from those carrying essential commodities. The Delhi administration reportedly introduced more buses and provided free rides, and raised parking fees to push people toward public transportation. The plan to drop water on the smog from helicopters had to be abandoned because the helicopters could not fly due to... well, the smog. Instead, firefighters were called in to spray the air with water from the ground.

Kejriwal has been raising the banner to fight smog throughout the past three years. In 2016, he initiated the “odd-even” formula to battle pollution by limiting traffic. The number of vehicles plying the capital’s roads under the formula would be limited by allowing only cars with either odd or even plate numbers on alternate days. The scheme was first tested in January 2016, and the November 2016 smog saw the rebirth of this idea. This year, it was not only the Delhi chief minister’s suggestion but also that of the National Green Tribunal. The same institution has also ordered the halt of stubble burning in the states around Delhi. Stubble burning had been made illegal before 2017 but farmers point out that they still lack the machines to dispose of agricultural waste in other ways.

Diwali, which falls in the autumn, has also ginned up smog concerns due to the large number of firecrackers popping off during the festivities. Firecrackers had been banned for Diwali in 2017 but most of people did not seem to heed the law in their celebrations.

As for the near future, it has been suggested that the Badarpur Thermal Power Station should be closed down, as some of sources say it may generate more than 10 percent of Delhi’s pollution. The tremendous expansion of the Delhi Metro in the last years was certainly a major success and a major commuter relief, but it is still not enough for the city of 16 million people. As for the “un-subwayed” areas, the number of buses is still far below demand and the number of private vehicles is already too high, and keeps growing. With just thousands of public city buses available for millions of people and more than a thousand private cars being registered every day, the balance is not just tilted; it is long destroyed. And just ask any Delhiite who does not own a car – how often would he use a public city bus? Apart from the private vehicles, it is the private buses, the auto rickshaws, and the cabs that rule the roost. It is thus plausible to expect that expanding the public transportation system, including the number of buses, will be one of the main elements of future government policy. This would hopefully go hand in hand with the central government’s plan for a complete introduction of electricity-powered buses across India.

The smog problem has been juggled back and forth between political jurisdictions. Kejriwal attempted to address stubble burning in a meeting with the chief ministers of Delhi’s two states, Punjab and Haryana, both known for their agriculture industry. The government of Punjab, in turn, suggested that solving the problem should mainly be the central government’s responsibility. At the same time, some media reports suggested that the Delhi government (that is the city administration, and not the republic’s federal government) has not utilized a huge chunk of its environment protection fund. The blame game is on and the parts of the truth seem to be as hidden as the city engulfed by smog.

But there have also been heart-warming, if only symbolic, gestures. Delhi’s neighboring region of Punjab straddles the border and continues into Pakistan, and similarly the problem of smog is not only India’s challenge and not only India’s making. Pakistan grapples with similar issues and at approximately the same time when Delhi was smog-infested one of Pakistan’s prime cities, Lahore, was choking on its own cloud. Thus, the chief minister of Pakistan’s province of Punjab penned a letter to the chief minister of Indian state of Punjab expressing his hope of cooperation on pollution issues. I would not expect much, but at least symbolically India and Pakistan have become united for once – against pollution.

Hanoz Dilli dur ast is a Persian saying which literally means “Delhi is still far away,”but this saying carries another meaning in India. It implies that we are still far from reaching our target. And the same goes to battling smog in Delhi.