Delhi govt's fight against pollution is a result of strong political will and action-oriented policies: DDC Vice Chairperson Jasmine Shah
new delhi: Delhi Dialogue and Development Commission (DDC) Vice Chairperson Jasmine Shah firmly believes that in order to tackle pollution, a regional specific approach with strong political will and action-oriented policies should be adopted. One of the active spokespersons of the policies of Delhi government, he wants PM Narendra Modi to chair the Air Quality Monitoring Commission along with the CMs of other Indian States.
In a detailed conversation with Millennium Post, he talks about the policies and efforts of Delhi government that have helped in reducing pollution in the Capital and describes various measures that can be adopted by other states and cities in order to prevent the environment from further degradation. Excerpts:
Q: Reducing pollution was among CM Arvind Kejriwal's 10 guarantees during the 2020 assembly elections. How far have we come?
A: Over the last seven years of the AAP government in Delhi, education, healthcare and bijli-paani are often spoken about. I would say that one of the signature achievements of this government has been how aggressively it has has taken initiatives even in the sphere of environment.There is data to show it. But the starting point to acknowledge that there is some substantial progress that Delhi is making towards environmental goals was a study by the Centre of Science and Environment(CSE) in 2019.
It showed that over a span of five years, Delhi's average PM2.5 pollution level has decreased by 25%. Generally, there is this perception that Delhi is highly polluted. But if we look at the overall trend, and consider the last five years, it is negative. I am talking about pre-Covid period. So between 2015 and 2020, the average pollution level has come down by 25%. But we need to do a lot more.
Q: What have been some of the major steps taken by the Delhi govt to address pollution so far?
A: Delhi is the only state that has shut down all its thermal power plants. We do know that coal emissions do create problems. We today have 24x7 electricity. Even if you go to the residential societies in Gurugram and Noida, many of them are run by diesel generators. Reliable electricity is still not available in major parts of North India.
In Delhi, in 2015 during summers, there were huge power cuts and you would see a lot of these diesel generators, even the small ones, in all shops. But today if you ask, very few people keep a backup power supply because Delhi has the most reliable power supply in the country and I think that has been a major progress.
Coming to industrial pollution, Delhi has the most stringent list of fuels that are allowed. We are today the only state where the entire industry has moved from coal to PNG.
Delhi has around 1,600 industrial units that need direct energy consumption and they have moved to pipe natural gas. The government has actively facilitated incentives for transition, and there have been some subsidy schemes that we have also launched.
Q: How is the Delhi govt improving public transport?
A: If you look at the contribution of transport, 35-40 per cent of the pollution comes from it. That is where Delhi is taking very aggressive and ambitious steps on two folds — one is to usher electric mobility, the electric vehicles, and the second is to increase the capacity and quality of public transport. Delhi Metro is one of the best Metro networks in the world today. But the expansion and the progress in public buses is also unprecedented.
Today, Delhi has more buses than it had at any point of time. We are at around 7,400 buses and more are in the pipeline and we will reach around 10,000 buses by 2025. Out of this, 80 per cent, that is around 8,000, are going to be electric. Today we have around 300 electric buses but in the next two years the aging fleet of DTC and cluster buses will be replaced.
Q: Delhi always features in the list of most polluted cities in the world. What is holding us from taking more ambitious action?
A: The first thing that we need to understand and realise is that pollution is not a Delhi specific problem, it is a pan India problem, and specifically pan North India problem because of both geographical factors and also the issue of 'paralli'. Pollution does know any borders. Many of these things that I have mentioned are happening only in Delhi.
We have transitioned our entire industry to clean fuel.
There seems to be very little understanding that this is a regional air shared problem and finally the question of 'paralli', the crop stubble burning where we know that those two months, it is the single most contributing factor. There are many conversations that have happened at the government of India level but very little traction.
The progress has been very marginal. Somewhere we see a huge lack of political will to treat this as a regional issue. So what is holding us back is a lack of scientific, regional approach. If you want a drastic change make a binding action plan that is mandatory for everyone.
Q : What are the lessons other cities and states in India can learn from Delhi's journey?
A: Delhi's journey has a lot that can be shared with other cities and states for them to learn. But it has to start from political will. What Delhi has done is not rocket science, there is a strong political will here. Before every winter and now even summers we come up with an action plan.
Our environment minister is constantly addressing the people of Delhi, the CM of Delhi always talks about pollution in his press conferences. How many press conferences the UP CM or the Haryana CM have done on Environment and pollution. The political will is very much reflected here. This kind of problem has to be taken up at the CM's level. Once that has happened then we know that solutions exist.
Delhi has shown that in a span of 2 years, with political commitment as well as a consulted policy action, you can increase your share of EVs from 1 to 12 per cent.
More than anything, for me, EVs have been a very satisfying story so far, because when we come up with a policy, it is sometimes met with skepticism. As a government, as long as you are willing to make this a shared mission, results will be positive.
Let's understand people and business constraints and find solutions that can work for everyone. It's been absolutely fantastic to see that the people of Delhi have responded, businesses, large organizations have responded and within 2 years our share of EV is at 12%.
Q: One idea or a leap of faith approach that you think can impact the fight against pollution in Delhi NCR?
A: We do have a commission in the name of the Central Air Quality commission. The failure of this commission is that it has become a bureaucratic body. The challenge has never been bureaucratic. The challenge has been aligning the political commitment and leadership of this country. I would want CAQM to be headed by the Prime Minister and have CMs of Punjab, UP and Haryana in it.
