The city must have an action plan in place to fight pollution

A few days ago, the news that Gurugram was the world’s most polluted city in 2018, as per the data released by IQAir Visual and Greenpeace, hit the headlines. (Ghaziabad stood at number two, Faridabad at number four; seven Indian cities were among the world’s top 10 polluted cities). Clearly, as a country, we have set our priorities for development wrong. What is most disappointing is that even with the general elections just around the corner, the issue of pollution is nowhere being publicly discussed by political parties in their election manifestos.

As one of the fastest growing cities of north India, Gurugram has paid a high price for development. We must be fools to not realise that pollution will eventually impact Gurugram’s ability to attract investment and talent. From what I hear from my friends in corporate roles, conversations about moving corporate offices out of Gurugram are not uncommon. More aware citizens, especially those who have lived outside India, have been shouting from the rooftops about the deteriorating air quality on social media groups for a while now. Affected families with children are also saying goodbye to the city. The ‘liveability index’ of the city is certainly at its lowest ebb.

Pollution is a complex problem to tackle especially in India, which has democratic structures aligned to populist politics and diverse stakeholders’ priorities. Unless there is political willingness to take drastic steps, nothing much will change. Besides, authorities need to back the policies with stringent enforcement. Last but not the least, citizens have to be fully engaged as drastic steps and enforcement will mean some pain for the larger good of a cleaner environment.

After all, we must remember that progressive cities are those that have quality integrated public transport, walking and cycling tracks, are low on emissions, adopt solar energy, make sustainability and inclusiveness their priority. These are certainly not cities that thrust more and more cars on their roads, then build more roads and flyovers to accommodate these cars and, soon enough, have choking roads.

So, where do we start? Planning to fight pollution is as important as fighting it. We need to have a national action plan with clear short-term, medium-term and long-term goals. In each city, a multi-disciplinary high-level committee (with citizens’ involvement) must review the problem on a regular basis. Gurugram currently has only two air quality monitoring stations, at Gawal Pahari and Vikas Sadan. A city of its size must have at least eight air monitoring stations. And the city should have regular analytical assessments on the causes and trends of the problem. The high-power pollution committee in Gurugram must focus on one or two immediate ‘actionables’ to set it on a course of correction.

The main culprits of pollution are dust, vehicular emissions, and waste burning and dumping. To control dust, construction sites that flout construction norms should be duly covered need to be monitored closely. Besides, C&D waste cannot be allowed to be thrown. Trucks carrying construction material should also be covered well. Water sprinklers can also be used.

Vehicular emissions can be controlled by better pollution checks, avoiding traffic jams, encouraging e-rickshaws, improving public transport and last-mile connectivity, as well as introducing non-motorised infrastructure. Decentralised waste solutions will reduce transportation costs and congestion of over-loaded trucks of garbage going to and fro to landfills.

In all this, enforcements by authorities will play a key role — we need strict penalties for non-compliance at construction sites, waste burning, C&D waste dumping and tree-felling.

Citizens’ education and awareness will play a key role in creating vital checks in neighbourhoods. Fighting pollution is also about raising collective consciousness at an individual and community level. Can we limit ownership of multiple cars, not buy luxury SUVs/diesel cars, opt for car-pooling, go ‘car-free’ once a week, compost our kitchen waste, switch to solar energy, and plant trees?

The beauty of embarking on the sustainable trip is that different steps all integrate at one level and one positive cycle builds the other. If we improve the waste cycle, we will see both water and air cycles improve as well. So, if we start solidly somewhere, it won’t be long before we start seeing synergistic gains elsewhere. Recently, Gurugram scored a poor 83 ranking (among 99 cities in its category) in 2019’s Swachh Survekshan. It may not be misplaced to say that had our Swachh Survekshan rankings been better, that would have reflected well on our pollution scorecards as well. We have all heard the story of how the greedy farmer cut his goose that lays golden eggs in the hope of getting all the eggs in one stroke. Gurugram is the golden goose of Haryana. Let’s not exploit it to the point of no return!

First Published: Mar 19, 2019 01:40 IST