A little past midnight at the Delhi-Ghaziabad border on Thursday, a police officer walks to a truck with ‘India is Great’ painted behind it, and asks, “Pataake toh nahi hain?” The driver shakes his head and the truck, laden with vegetables, trudges along, leaving behind a trail of sooty smoke.
A year earlier, the Environment Pollution (Prevention & Control) Authority (EPCA) had submitted to the Supreme Court that the air in Delhi after Diwali was the worst it had ever been — 14 times worse than the norm, and even worse than the ‘Great Smog of London in 1952’. This year — all signs indicate — could be equally bad, if not worse.
Take, for example, this border checkpost, where trucks queue up and drivers play cards while clutching handkerchiefs to their faces. The air hangs heavy, the acrid smell of diesel permeating everything.
In 2015 and 2016, the Supreme Court had issued orders to not allow trucks not destined for Delhi into the city. It had also stressed on more stringent enforcement of rules to check polluting vehicles. Between midnight and 12.30 am, 24 trucks cross the checkpost at Ghaziabad. Of these, 13 are visibly polluting, but only one is told to turn back. “The papers were all in order. They had PUCs and other documents,” a South Corporation official said.
Most rules, drivers said, are meant to be broken. “Option nahi hai koi aur. They send some trucks back, but that’s just for show. If you have money for a bribe, you can get in. Who is going to stop a truck carrying food meant for the city?” Jignesh Kumar, who drives a 13-year-old truck, said. South Delhi mayor Kamaljeet Sehrawat said, “Such things shouldn’t be happening. I will get it inspected.”
In the meantime, on October 6, the EPCA began a survey at the Delhi-Gurgaon Kapashera border to assess the efficacy of imposing the Environment Compensation Charge on commercial vehicles entering Delhi — in force since 2015. It will be done at 20 such points in two phases — before and after Diwali.
Up in flames
Trucks are just one of the many contradictions in attempting to solve Delhi’s air crisis — they pollute, but the city can’t function without them. Such contradictions, officials said, are at the heart of all efforts to curb air pollution.
Take, for instance, the issue of crop residue burning. This was underscored by the EPCA in its 2016 report to the Supreme Court, when it said “burning of paddy residue by farmers in Punjab and Haryana” had “compounded” Delhi’s already existing poor air — leading to smog in winters. Earlier last week, the Central Pollution Control Board made a presentation to Delhi government officials, saying that “crop burning in 2017 was already much worse” than last year.
