00:00And I want to turn from there to another issue of public concern, which is the capital's pollution
00:06woes and indeed pollution woes across the country this winter that in several parts show no signs
00:12of easing. A latest analysis has shown that the national capital's toxic air is actually of its
00:18own making and cannot be attributed as it often is to stubble burning. A new analysis by India's
00:25leading environmental NGO, the Centre for Science and Environment, has revealed that the biggest
00:30contributions to Delhi's air pollution are vehicular emissions, not stubble fires this year. The think
00:37tank's report highlights that despite farm fires being at a multi-year low, the capital's air still
00:44remains in the very poor or even severe category. The level of fine pollutants has shown no improvement
00:51since 2022, indicating that pollution control measures being implemented by government agencies
00:58are not effective on the ground. Vehicular emissions in particular are the ones that are spiking and this
01:07spike is what is causing what is being described as a toxic cocktail. What does this really mean?
01:15Are we unfairly targeting the farmers for stubble burning? Is the real crisis vehicular emissions
01:21when it comes to pollution? Sunita Narayan, Director, CSE, which is authored that report, joins me. Sunita,
01:29it's been widely believed even in the past that vehicular emissions account for about 40% of pollution.
01:35Are you saying that could be an even higher number and stubble burning was seen to account for about 17%?
01:40Is that even less if I were to put it in percentage terms?
01:45So, Rajdeep, that's not the percentage. The fact is stubble burning was never on an average 17%.
01:53In this season?
01:54In this season?
01:55Yeah. In this season, it tips us over. And broadly, what we have understood, there are certain days of winter
02:03when in the past when stubble burning could have contributed up to 25% to 30%. And on an average,
02:11as you said, it could be up to 17% in this one month of stubble burning period. What we have found
02:19this year, and that should both worry us, but also it gives us a sense of there is one less thing to worry
02:27about, which is the farm fire, which we were not being able to combat, is that this year,
02:35the pollution from farm fires, partly also because, Rajdeep, as you know, Punjab has been under flood.
02:42There has been huge damage to the crop. And as a result of it, the farm fire contribution to Delhi,
02:50according to government's own data, we have only analysed the data from the Ministry of Earth Sciences.
02:58So, this is not our data. Their own data shows that on an average, it has been less than 5%.
03:05And only on two days did it go up to about 15%.
03:12The rest, but the worry part of it is that pollution remained very high. And you have done shows on it. We
03:20have suffered it. We cannot breathe in Delhi today. And the entire period, pollution has remained high.
03:27Now, this tells us that winter is bad. Weather turns adverse. We know the sources of pollution remain the same.
03:39And between vehicles, between industrial pollution, between waste burning, these are local sources,
03:48and we need to deal with them fast, at an emergency level, and at scale. The problem today is the lack of scale.
03:58It is not about not knowing the source. It is about the scale of action that is needed.
04:03So, let's focus on that, on one of the critical areas that your report points out,
04:08vehicular pollution, which suggests that, therefore, the air quality remains bad right around the year,
04:15certainly higher than acceptable, because of vehicular pollution, along with dust. How do you tackle that on scale?
04:23So, what our report also shows us that there is a direct correlation between congestion, between
04:30pollution, between vehicular movement, and particularly NO2 levels, nitrogen dioxide levels, which are also
04:39very elevated. We also find that carbon monoxide levels are very high. Now, this means that we need
04:46to deal with vehicular pollution and we need to make different categories of it. So, how do vehicles
04:53pollute? Vehicles pollute by the kilometres they travel and by the emission standards that are there.
05:01Now, if you look at private cars, we are adding 500 new cars into Delhi a day. Now, this is data for Delhi
05:11registration only. If you take all of NCR, it would be much higher. We are adding 1,500 new
05:18two-wheelers a day. Now, it is not possible to say people should get off their cars, get off their
05:25two-wheelers when we do not have adequate public transport. So, you need to upscale public transport
05:31at a scale that we have never seen. But we need clean public transport. If you remember, Rajdeep, you were
05:38very much doing shows at that time when we moved towards CNG in Delhi. We moved all buses, all diesel
05:45buses in one year to compress natural gas. We moved all auto rickshaws to compress natural gas. The scale
05:52of it, 100,000 vehicles moved to CNG. That's the scaling we need. Now, if you're talking about public
06:00transport, we need to be able to scale it at that level. Today, we are adding a few
06:05electric buses, which is great. But ridership in buses is going down because there is so much
06:13congestion on the road that buses are stuck in traffic. They've become unreliable. They have
06:18breakdowns. And as a result of it, ridership is down. So, that's one big part of the agenda. And every
06:25time it gets put off saying, oh, this is a long-term agenda. But it's time we started a real solid
06:32upgradation of public transport. But over and above that, we need two other parts of that agenda.
06:39We need trucks, which are really old trucks. We need to make sure that we can move them to better
06:47quality trucks today. Because BS6 trucks today are much lower in terms of emissions. But you cannot
06:55do this one or two. You need a scheme like CNG when you replaced all auto rickshaws. You need to
07:01incentivize this scrappage program. Then you need your autos, your taxis, which travel the maximum
07:09kilometers, 200 kilometers a day, to completely electrify. But again, you need to do that super
07:16fast. Not one here, one there. You need to do it. And with this, you need to make sure you have
07:23car restraint measures, which is high parking. But you can't do that till you provide people an
07:29alternative. You have to get us to move people and not vehicles. It's an agenda that cannot, will not go
07:38away. And be very clear, Rajdeep, we're all stuck in traffic. And now we're not just stuck in traffic,
07:44we're also breathing foul air. And no amount of air purifiers is going to make us healthy.
07:51Those are very strong words. What we need, therefore, is an urgent and scaled-up plan to
07:58control vehicular pollution, in particular, at the very earliest. Does anyone have the political will
08:04to do that? Is a big question or the appetite to do that? Parliament discusses a range of other issues.
08:11Why can't they devote 10 hours to air pollution as well? If you can discuss Vande Matram on its 150th
08:19anniversary, why not, for God's sake, discuss something for today, which is air pollution and find
08:25solutions and come with a consensus and a plan of action. Not just discuss it, but a plan of action.
08:31Implement it. Implementation.
08:33And implement that plan. I take your point. I take your point. Implement that plan of action.
08:38Sunita Narayan, for sharing details of that report, appreciate you joining me here in our continuing focus
08:45on the air emergency.
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