One thing that you will notice while travelling to East Asia is the number of people wearing surgical masks. This was a popular phenomenon even before the outbreak of the severe acute respiratory syndrome pandemic in 2003. It is believed that these masks can trap airborne pathogens.

So much so that, during a trip to Shanghai a few years ago, surgical masks were a part of this writer’s welcome kit. Another reason why these masks are handed out to the visitors is the stifling pollution in certain cities across the region. New Delhi must now join the peers in this unwelcome list.

All thanks to the Delhi Pollution Control Committee website, as one can see — at least on weekdays that the said committee is not doing an effective job. Even if some pollution parameters such as concentrations of ozone and benzene are in the green, the numbers for suspended particulate matter and nitrogen oxides are in critical zone.

While the impact of nitrogen oxide cannot be physically seen, cleaning out the air-conditioning filters will demonstrate the alarming amount of suspended particulate matter in Delhi’s air.

The Government has a massive task at hand to clear out the mess; both at Central and State levels. While it is encouraging to see that perpetually arguing Governments have joined hands in limiting the number of heavy vehicles inside the city, there is no doubt that both the Governments have to shoulder a significant part of the blame as well.

That is because, by keeping a lopsided fuel price policy, whereby even today, diesel at the pump costs Rs20 per litre less than petrol, and where a commuter, who travels around a thousand kilometres per month, which in a sprawling megapolis like Delhi-NCR is millions of commuters, diesel has become a fuel of choice for cars.

We are told that a diesel car is cleaner than before and is more efficient. The latter is indeed true; a diesel car does deliver incredible fuel economy — 50 per cent more than a similar sized petrol engine. It is also true that a diesel engine car has dealt with issues like noise pollution, vibration and harshness, that afflicted it a decade ago.

While a diesel car still creates much noise and vibrates more than a petrol car, in some vehicles this has been controlled to such an extent that it is difficult to gauge if someone is using a diesel engine or a petrol one. It is, therefore, not surprising that half of all new car sales across India are of diesel variants now.

But the original statement in the last paragraph has one fallacy. Diesel engines are not much cleaner than they were a decade ago. The apparent cleanliness has been achieved by better suspended particulate matter filters that have cleared up the black sooty smoke which emerged from the diesel engines.

However, as the Volkswagen scandal in the United States clearly demonstrated, far more poisonous exhaust gases such as nitrogen oxide and far finer suspended particulate matter particles are still emitted from diesel engines, efficient or not. The numbers are in multiples of the exhaust gases that are emitted from petrol cars.

Indian emission norms are nowhere close to those prescribed by Europe or the United States.

Suspended particulate matter and nitrogen oxide norms in India are similar to the norms that were persistent in Europe in the 1990s. Automobile manufacturers, fattened on the sale of diesel cars, have actively resisted stricter pollution norms, and in a sense, they have become little better than cigarette manufacturers, who resisted bigger warning labels.

Also, while the power situation in Delhi has improved over the past five years, to the extent that back-up generators do not need to be employed much, other than at outdoor events outside the capital territory, in burgeoning satellite towns like Ghaziabad and Faridabad, diesel generators are often the primary source of power.

While cleaner, efficient diesel generators are used inside the capital, in the NCR cities, generators that ought to have been retired a decade ago, still provide service.

The problem is that, unlike cigarette smoke that mainly impacted the user and had limited collateral damage, poisonous exhausts from cars are hurting everyone. Even if cars pass muster at the manufacturing level, poor maintenance and almost zero compliance and monitoring mean that emissions on cars even a year old can be off the charts.

Just look at Delhi’s sky for crying out loud. It is not blue; it’s a dull grey in the middle of a sunny afternoon. If this proof is not enough that there is stifling pollution, just go to the DPCC website for evidence.

The National Green Tribunal’s order on older diesel and petrol vehicles earlier this year was successfully resisted by the Union and the State Governments. However, there was a marked improvement in the air quality when a couple of older diesel cars and trucks were off the roads — this can be seen first-hand on the DPCC website. With truckers and commuters crying hoarse about their livelihoods being destroyed, the Governments coerced the NGT to modify its order.

However, when you put the livelihood of a few few above the lives of the many, and pollution impacts millions, if not tens of millions who live in the NCR, there is a problem. While there are no quantifiable numbers, there is little doubt that thousands of young lives are either snuffed out or have stunted growth annually in the region due to air pollution.

The sale of diesel passenger cars will need to be controlled across India if pollution has to be contained. If China is any indication, while the pollution crisis started in Beijing, it spread rapidly across developing cities across that country.

In India, Delhi’s air quality is pathetic, but if change is not implemented now, Delhi will not stand alone with its murky and heavy air. Diesel power will remain a vital tool in trade and commerce as well as in public transport. However, a subsidy meant to keep consumer prices down has been abused and the capital’s lungs are paying the price. The NGT had suggested drastic measures. Maybe they were right.