All For A Smaller Footprint

India The Killing Air   By Parvati Sharma

New Delhi, (Women's Feature Service) - A recent World Bank and Clean Air Initiative study has declared Delhi to be Asia's most polluted city. Despite the combined efforts of the Supreme Court and the Delhi Administration over the past five to six years, this is a listing that cannot have surprised the city's residents. However, though it is commonly acknowledged that Delhi's air isn't clean, the factors that contribute to its pollution remain hazy and under-documented.

Beginning in 1998-99, the Supreme Court enforced the implementation of certain key policies in an effort to lower the levels of carbon monoxide (CO), sulphur dioxide (SO2) and Suspended Particulate Matter (SPM) in Delhi. These included implementing Euro II emission norms for cars, converting public transport to CNG (compressed natural gas), lowering the acceptable levels of SO2 and benzene in fuel, and banning vehicles more than 15 years old from the city's streets.

Today, these measures have had a perceptible effect. SPM levels have stabilised even though they have not declined; and both CO and SO2 emissions are well below ambient air quality standards.

On the other hand, Aromatics (a chain of hydrocarbons found in fuels, of which benzene is a component) have not been controlled. And, more critical, the levels of nitrogen oxides (NOx) are rising steadily, having exceeded the standard in two areas - ITO (in central Delhi) and Town Hall (in old Delhi).

In addition, according to Ravi Aggarwal, Director of Toxics Link (which organised a panel discussion in Delhi recently, entitled 'Is the Air Killing Us?'), certain toxins such as lead, cadmium and mercury are not usually measured in air quality studies. The impact of these, he says, can lead to disorders ranging from diabetes to genetic malfunctions.

For Delhi-based NGO, Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), however, NOx is the greatest concern. When released into the atmosphere, it not only aggravates respiratory problems, it also acts as a catalyst to produce ozone. Ozone can trigger such serious and immediate effects, especially for people with respiratory or cardiac problems that some countries like Mexico issue public service alerts when ozone levels rise, warning people to take precautions.

According to CSE, a number of factors have contributed to rising NOx levels - not only in Delhi but also across the country's big cities. The first of these is increasing traffic, as more and more people are buying cars; and the fact that urban Indians are buying more diesel- than petrol-driven cars.

The relatively low cost of diesel means that an increasingly upwardly mobile middle class can afford bigger cars at what appear to be cheaper rates. The catch is that Euro II emission norms allow diesel cars to emit three times more NOx than petrol vehicles. This is because diesel engines can either be made to emit less particulate matter or less NOx, and lowering both poses an engineering challenge.

Second, CNG vehicles designed to emit minimal NOx require regular maintenance of their catalytic converters; otherwise, their Nox emissions also rise. And finally there is the trade-off between two-stroke and four-stroke motorbikes. Today, most two-wheelers in Delhi have four-stroke engines because two-stroke engines emit more hydrocarbons and particulate matter. Conversely, four-stroke engines emit three times more NOx.

The problem is one of improved technology, according to Anumita Roychowdhury, Associate Director for Policy Research and Advocacy at CSE. It is aggravated by the fact that technological leaps are more sudden and tend to penetrate social consciousness far more rapidly than government policies.

"No matter how flexible policies are," says Aggarwal, "investments are fixed, which makes it difficult to react to emerging trends."

So, what are the immediate changes that could help bring down current pollution levels especially that of NOx? Both CSE and Toxics Link have been pressing for making the Pollution Under Control (PUC) certificate more meaningful. Today, according to Roychowdhury, this is a "sham" because it measures only CO, smoke and hydrocarbons. Measuring the concentration of NOx emitted by petrol engines requires the vehicle to be in motion, for which a device called the chassis dynamometer is needed. Of course, this would be more expensive but, in the long term, more worthwhile as well. Measuring NOx emissions from diesel cars is more complicated and therefore it is better to deal with the issue at the manufacturing stage.

Both NGOs demand a leap to Euro IV norms, which stipulate much tighter standards for both petrol and diesel engines. Even these norms, however, fall short of the measures being taken in the US, where diesel vehicles are no longer allowed to emit more toxins than petrol.

In addition, the NGOs propose reducing traffic by improving the infrastructure of public transport, imposing a tax on owning and using personal vehicles and encouraging the use of non-motorised transport. In essence, these measures would imply cajoling Delhi's upper and middle class into accepting a way of life radically different from the one it enjoys today.

Is the change conceivable? According to Ravi Aggarwal, the middle class will have to push for it. Although the poor are far more affected by pollution than the economically privileged, they have other, more critical concerns. The rich have always had the option of insulating themselves. It is the middle class, torn between the desire for bigger and better cars and the most apparent effects of air pollution (chronic respiratory problems) who must propel any effective transformation.

Is it happening? Yes, says Roychowdhury. In the past five years, public acceptance and approval of the CNG programme has made Delhi's government more willing and able to implement further change. During its current five-year plan the Delhi government has allocated a large sum of money to improve transport infrastructure in the city (including the high capacity bus system, the electric tram system, integrated rail and bus networks etc). And in June 2004, the government imposed an environmental cess in the form of a two per cent tax on diesel vehicles.

These may not be giant strides. But with luck, they add up to small steps in the right direction.

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