Lessons from Beijing: More than car bans, curbing village pollution was key to smog

Miaoergang, a quiet village that is 50 km away from Beijing's crowded ring roads, is an unlikely battleground for the city's fight against smog. But it was here, the government believes, that it won a decisive victory in its fight against smog.

Delhi may be mulling an odd-even car ban. In Beijing, this is used only as an emergency measure under a four-tier alert system, as local officials have realised that vehicular pollution is a limited source.

Smog - whether in Delhi or Beijing - doesn't respect city limits. So Beijing launched a coordinated campaign around the city and in villages in four surrounding provinces.

This involved a door-to-door campaign to phase out wood and coal burning within the city, and a massive effort in surrounding villages to install CNG units to stop coal burning and to encourage farmers to sell their stubble to prevent crop burning.

In Miaoergang, a CNG power station was built at the centre of the village in 2014. "At first, this station was only serving this village, but we have since expanded it to serve six surrounding villages as well which have all now stopped coal burning", a worker at the station told India Today.

Then there was a door-to-door campaign to stop wood and coal burning and to set up gas and electricity-powered units in the city's neighbourhoods. "Through our campaign, we have reduced coal burning by 1.6 million tons and the burning of sulphur dioxide by 16 million tons", a government official said.

An odd-even car ban is also one weapon, but used only for emergencies when smog is forecast.

Besides its four-tier system of alerts that call for emergency measures from stopping construction sites to odd-even vehicle bans, the capital has also pushed through larger structural changes:

• Four gas-fired plants have been opened to provide central heating for residents, cutting coal consumption by 9 million tons.

• Stringent checks have been placed on construction sites and trucks - a huge source of dust in cities. Nine construction companies found violating norms were handed a one-month ban on bidding of projects in Beijing. No bribes were allowed to skirt the rules.

• More than 3,000 trucks were fined for illegally carrying construction materials without permits.

• As many as 1,500 high-emission vehicles were prevented from entering the city.

• Orange and red alerts were issued before high-pollution days, leading to temporary odd-even car restrictions and closures of all construction sites as emergency measures.

The measures, the government says, have worked. Till September, the average air pollution readings were down by 34.8 per cent compared to 2013.

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