Delhi air pollution: ‘Even London took nearly 45 years to achieve clean air'

In the one year since the BJP came to office in Delhi, pollution has remained its biggest pain point, with the city recording its most polluted December air in six years. The environment and industries minister outlines the government’s plan to help Delhi breathe easier.

When can Delhiites expect air quality to meet the national air quality standards?
■ I cannot give an exact deadline because there are too many things to do. But our target is to reduce pollution levels by 10-15% every year. This is not a task where you can simply turn on a regulator and see immediate results.


China, for instance, took nearly 11 years to bring down pollution levels. Under the Beijing model, around 350 villages were removed, industries were relocated outside the city and a large-scale shift from internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles to electric vehicles was enforced. Many of these measures are not feasible in a city like Delhi. We cannot relocate all JJ clusters, shut down all industries, or ask residents to give up their ICE vehicles.

This is a complex challenge. In the coming years, Delhi’s approach will be studied as a model. The city is home to over 30 million people, with massive municipal waste generation and heavy vehicular movement, all of which we are managing. Even London took nearly 45 years to achieve clean air.

Cloud seeding was announced as a key anti-pollution intervention, but both trials were unsuccessful. Will it be attempted again this winter?■ It is being worked on as a continuous process. IIT Kanpur, with whom we have signed an MoU, is studying how to proceed and what studies need to be conducted. The work will continue as a study through different means, so that if required, it can be again presented as an emergency solution for Delhi. It is not a permanent solution.

What are the biggest lessons in managing Delhi’s air pollution? What measures are you putting in place to ensure the coming winter is less polluted?
■ We are working on long, short and medium term solutions. The issue has lingered for over 40-years; the first case related to air pollution was filed in 1985 in the Supreme Court (MC Mehta vs State). The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) govt did nothing for 11 years.

If you ask them what they did to control pollution, they will talk about the odd-even scheme and red light on, vehicles off campaign -- both useless. Even the court questioned them. What they should have done was end-to-end road carpeting to control dust; create EV infrastructure; bring in more e-buses... They didn’t. Delhi’s industrial areas have unpaved roads and no provision for sweeping.
Major work that should have happened didn’t. AAP just brought out advertisements. Now, after 11 years, we must work to fix their incompetence.

There is not a single e-waste management plant in Delhi and e-waste is often burnt. What a shame. Even Haryana has seven-eight plants. There are 27 non-conforming industrial areas where polluting industries were operating without monitoring and with impunity. We marked over 9,000 such industries, bought them under Delhi Pollution Control Committee’s checks and subsequently, over 800 red-category units were shut.


We are finding technical solutions to fix pollution through initiatives like the innovation challenge, recently held at IIT-Delhi. Some solutions like retrofits to trap emissions at exhaust and mounted air filters are ingenious.
We have reclaimed 45 out of 202 acres of land from three landfill sites and managed to reduce their height by a third, and are now exploring ways to use the reclaimed land. Like at Bhalswa, we are considering building a bus terminal.

There have been concerns over missing air quality data on Diwali night, water being sprinkled around monitoring stations, and delays in the release of Yamuna water quality data by DPCC. What is your response to the allegations and gaps?■ The purpose of water sprinklers is to settle dust. What can be more shameful than having water sprinklers but not using them to manage dust? Water sprinklers have been deployed across Delhi. The real time and old data of air quality is available and data was missing for a maximum of five minutes.

I will review it if the gap was longer on Diwali night. Similarly, reports on Yamuna are being uploaded regularly. Those who are raising questions today should remember that had they cleaned the river, such concerns would not have arisen.

Despite record use of defoamers, frothing in the Yamuna continues. DPCC’s water laboratory is not NABL-accredited, official data from different sources shows different readings. What is the govt’s roadmap for reviving the river?■ Challenges have persisted for 25–30 years. It’s difficult to eliminate them. Delhi has 35 sewage treatment plants but needs hundreds. Untreated water is released into the Yamuna from Haryana... Work needs to be done at multiple levels. If things could be fixed with a magic wand in 365 days, AAP would have already done it. We will address it through slow and steady progress. As for discrepancies in data, I can only comment after going through reports.

Many ponds and lakes in Delhi have disappeared. What is the govt doing to revive them and remove encroachments?
■ We are working on it.