Delhi is gasping for breath because AAP government did not use Rs 1,500cr it had to fix the problem
Delhi's air quality has been dangerous for weeks.
As Delhi chokes on its poisonous air and its authorities offer half-baked, knee-jerk solutions, comes another shocker – the AAP government in Delhi has been sitting on over Rs 1,500 crore, which had been collected as “green tax” over the years and has been lying unspent.
According to a Hindustan Times report based on an RTI reply: “The lion’s share of the amount - Rs 1,003 crore (till November 10) - comes from an Environment Compensation Charge (ECC) imposed by the Supreme Court in 2015 on trucks entering Delhi, while the rest is made up of cess on every litre of diesel sold, in effect since 2008.”
How The Delhi government deal with the pollution,they are unable to spend green fund of ₹787 crore,because they are not interested to give healthy lives to delhi citizens.Arvind kejriwal enjoyGood life in ACroom.AAPGovt only spent93 lakhs(0.11%)of total fund#KejriwalChokedDelhi
— Govind Singh (@IGovindSingh) November 16, 2017
Instead of utilising fund of green tax collected to curb pollution, Kejriwal remained busy in blame game #KejriwalChokedDelhi keeping mammoth fund of 786 cr un-utilised.
— Manoj Goenka ???????? (@iam_manojgoenka) November 16, 2017
Centre govt diverted 51 thousand Cr of environmental cess collected but no questions being asked them. V will spend the cess fund on procurement of busses but LG is halting the land required for bus depot.: Dy CM Manish Sisodia
— ASHUTOSH MISHRA (@ashu3page) November 16, 2017
The same report says that the Delhi government spent only Rs 93 lakh of the amount collected between November 6, 2015 and November 1, 2017.
To put this into perspective, “Delhi’s total bus fleet is 5,425, against the sanctioned strength of 11,000 as mandated by the Delhi High Court. Each standard-floor bus costs about Rs 45 lakh,” the report adds.
The implementation of the odd-even scheme this time around had to be put off as the National Green Tribunal (NGT) refused to allow the “arbitrary exemptions” the Delhi government had sought, which would not have been needed if Delhi had a robust public transport system.
For further context, the Supreme Court had asked the Delhi government to hike its bus fleet strength to 10,000 in 1998. The Delhi Transport Corporation has not procured a single bus since 2010.
For yet more context, the government on Thursday lifted the increased parking charges that had come into effect after the smog worsened. The Environment Pollution Control Authority, while announcing the relaxation, said it had allowed the hiked fees to be lifted due to the lack of public transport in the city, which forced people to depend on private vehicles.
As a row over the unspent money erupted, with both the BJP and the Congress gunning for the government, the Aam Aadmi Party did what it does best – point fingers. AAP MLA Saurabh Bharadwaj was quick to claim that they had never cited a lack of funds for not buying buses, and it was the Centre’s fault as it had refused to allot land for the parking of these buses.
“We can buy buses, but there are no parking spaces available. Centre will not allot space for the government. We cannot accept that the Centre will not give us land in the long run. The Centre has been delaying our projects and they keep sitting on our proposals seeking parking spaces for the buses,” Bharadwaj said.
The government also said it was now planning to buy 500 electric buses, without specifying where it would park these.
Before this, as Delhi awoke to a shroud of pollutants enveloping it in the first week of November, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, while eloquently describing the city as a “gas chamber”, had also sought to distance the cause and the cure of the pollution from his own state - the main reason for the problem was stubble burning in Punjab and Haryana. He had tried meeting the chief ministers of both states, but not much had come out of it, the CM had tweeted.
Causes behind the smog
Delhi is choking because a lot of pollutants - dust, noxious gases - are released into its air, from vehicles, construction sites, air conditioners, garbage-burning, etc, within the city, and from farm stubble-burning in neighbouring states.
Due to the dry weather, there are a lot of dust and finer particles - particulate matter - scattered in the air, as there is no wind, the particles are not being blown away.
In effect, the fine layer Delhiites find coating the tables and other surfaces in their houses two hours after they have dusted them is also coating their nasal passage and lungs, along with other poisonous gases, making a lethal mix, which is exposing them to the risks of respiratory diseases, heart diseases and cancer.
Money not spent because not much was done
The Delhi smog is not a surprise. The city had gone through the same hell a year ago, too. What is surprising is that the government started showing signs of movement only after last year’s poisonous blanket came back.
Parking charges for private vehicles were raised, bringing back the odd-even scheme was discussed, there was a temporary ban on construction in the city. Basically, preventive measures were initiated after the consequences of the problem had been manifested, despite several raps by the judiciary.
Among steps to immediately tackle the smog is sprinkling water over the city so that the dust settles. Water has also been known to “wash away” some pollutants from the air. This was done in the ITO area on Wednesday. The government is also talking to aviation service provider Pawan Hans to sprinkle water aerially over the city. This idea had been suggested by the NGT in November last year.
Vacuum cleaners can be used to suck the dust off the city’s roads, which has so far not been done.
There is as yet no clear cause-effect-solution map for such a critical health emergency. A proper study needs to be carried out for that.
The Delhi government had one year to do all of this. Now, it turns out, it also had the money.
Farm stubble-burning
Farm stubble-burning is basically the burning of paddy shafts left over after the summer crop has been harvested, so the fields can be cleared for replanting in the winter.
More efficient methods of clearing fields are available, which not only do away with the need to burn paddy, but also increase the crop yield by using the stubble as fertilising mulch. However, they involve expensive machines, which farmers are naturally unwilling to buy.
A recent report quoted a farmer as saying, “Given a choice between a box of matchsticks and machinery worth Rs 2 lakh, what will you choose?”
The choice for the farmer seems obvious, and this is where the government needs to step in. However, both Punjab and Haryana governments have cited lack of funds as the reason behind their inability to do much about the problem. Punjab CM Amarinder Singh had even sought help from the Centre for this.
Now, we hear the Delhi government was all along sitting on a pile of money that could have gone a long way in sorting out the problem, if the state governments could have evolved a lending mechanism following due processes.
Lack of will
The approach of the Kejriwal government to the smog problem, as indeed to much else, has been to apportion blame, instead of finding solutions. Letting residents choke while it had all the resources to provide them cleaner air amounts to violation of the fundamental right to life of Delhi people.
Hopefully, with the government now under greater scrutiny, more steps would be taken to clean up Delhi’s air, and the smog does not become an annual event in the Capital’s calendar.