Once upon a time there was a house with a leaky roof. Nobody did anything about it. The leakage became worse. Family members suffered. One day a little boy in the house had a plan. He brought a glue stick and a piece of cardboard from his art and craft set. “This will fix it,” he said.
The family members melted. The boy’s cute expression, the spark in his eyes and the fact that he was the only one who wanted to do something about the problem meant he deserved praise.
“Bravo,” everyone told him, “so thoughtful and smart of you.” Everyone patted his back and pulled his cheeks. However, someone needed to tell him, “Son, your thought is amazing, but sadly, that plan isn’t going to work.”
However, who wants to be the surly uncle who tells him that?
The leaky roof and the house in the above example is the pollution in Delhi. The glue stick and cardboard solution is the odd-even number-plate scheme proposed by the Delhi government. The cute boy, well, you can take your guess. There are just so many cute and earnest people in AAP that you could spend weeks pulling everyone’s cheeks.
However, this article is not a criticism of AAP, and frankly, not meant to be political at all. It isn’t that pollution in Delhi is not a problem. It is, and terribly so. However, sometimes the proposed solution is not the one that works. We do need to look at things logically, scientifically and practically before rushing to make announcements.
To begin with, the sources of pollution in the capital aren’t clear: factories, crop burning in neighbouring states, power plants, cooking on coal or wood stoves, old autos and aged commercial vehicles are also significant polluters. Incidentally, none of those in the last category will be covered in the odd-even plan. Without a clear calculation of how much private vehicles contribute to Delhi’s pollution, making half of them sit idle at all times seems like a draconian and ill-conceived idea.
Next, we just don’t have the traffic police manpower to track adherence. Scheme supporters may believe that people will be good. However, if we were good people, all of India’s schemes would have worked. There will be legal ways around the scheme (buy another car for the number plate, often an old, second hand, more polluting one) or illegal ways (fake an emergency certificate, bribe the cop, take a chance, switch the number plate). After the initial euphoria and media frenzy around the scheme dies, Delhiites will figure out a way to get their cars on the road.
For those who adhere to the rules, they will end burdening the already choked public transport system even more. Autos will either not be available, or will overcharge. Metros, already packed, will become worse. Delhi doesn’t have public transport like Paris and Singapore (where such measures were applied, albeit only on a temporary basis). Alongside this, there will be tremendous negative side-effects for certain sections of our society. Many drivers will be without jobs, goods won’t move efficiently causing inflation and school kids who travel in private vehicles will suffer.
The worst part is this glue-cardboard solution will give us a false sense of achievement while the real solutions will be ignored. In many places where such measures were tried, such as Mexico and Bogota, they have failed. In Beijing, an oftentouted example, the measure worked somewhat but it was temporary, for a specific event. Also, Beijing is not a democracy, and the plan fits into what an authoritarian state would do. In democratic India we must think a hundred times before we steal our people’s freedom. Incidentally, Beijing also rolled tanks on people who tried the kind of movements from which AAP was born. Hence, compare cities with caution.
Solutions do exist. The long-term solution is to create more world-class cities like Delhi, so we reduce the pressure from the super metros. The super metros also need a much better public transport system. In the short term, we can incentivize offices with lower taxes to have different work hours, which will balance out the traffic and make it move faster. A car stuck in a traffic jam pollutes much more than a car that quickly finishes its journey. We can also raise taxes on purchase of new cars (or limit their numbers). We also need Radio Frequency Identification Device (RFID) tags on all cars in the city, so we can introduce peak hour congestion charges and other such road optimization measures. Taxi sharing apps must be encouraged for they can go a long way in reducing cars on the roads.
AAP deserves credit for trying to do something about Delhi’s pollution. Delhi deserves better air but it also deserves more sensible solutions to achieve the same
December 13, 2015 ()