Delhi debates how it can bring back the blue skies

NEW DELHI: Asked if they felt that Delhi had a relatively blue sky on Saturday, hundreds of people raised their hands in unison. However, panelists at the “Bring Back the Blue Skies” session at Times LitFest were quick to point out that pollution levels were still alarmingly high with AQI at 306.




“This is one of the challenges for Delhi that we feel it’s an apocalypse only when we can smell the air, or see billowing grey clouds, or are short of breath. Delhi’s air is between 12 and 20 times the WHO safe standard at different times of the year. This shows that air pollution is a year-long problem, and not just limited to winter. Bringing back Delhi’s blue skies has to be made an annual affair,” said Navroz K Dubash, professor at the Centre for Policy Research.

Other panellists, including environmentalist Arunabha Ghosh, banker and business executive Naina Lal Kidwai, GAIL’s Rajeev Mathur and the moderator, author and commentator on clean energy, Saurav Jha, concurred that the issue required a holistic approach. “We need a good mix of short- and long-term measures. For the short term, the way we construct and build our roads needs to be looked at. The amount of dust being generated is tremendous. The good news, however, is that there is an effort to look at electric vehicles. If you reduce emissions from vehicles and improve implementation on the ground, much difference can be made,” said Kidwai.

Ghosh referred to APEC 2014 where host China shut down industries and coal plants days before the event to give a “cleaner” picture to visitors. The blue skies led to the emergence of a popular hashtag — #BringAPECBlueback — something that Ghosh felt could only come with citizens taking the initiative.

GAIL’s Rajeev Mathur, too, felt that people needed to embrace cleaner energy options. Or as Ashwin Sanghi, author and address note speaker, put it: “A man devoid of nature is nothing but a soulless entity”.