Air pollution in Delhi (as well as most of North India) this November has been the highest for the month in almost a decade. The post-Diwali pollution is the highest it has been in three years. Even though it's just November, some schools have already shut down due to the pollution.
GOVERNMENT APATHY?
It's no wonder that citizens are demanding strong action from the government. After all, the levels of the pollutant PM2.5, so small that it can enter your blood vessels through the lungs and reach the heart, were 14 times above safe levels in just this week.
But the government's response has none of this urgency. Even as people are demanding radical measures, including declaring a health emergency, a meeting on 4 November between top bureaucrats led to the same old promises.
The meeting between the secretary of the environment ministry, which holds the responsibility of implementing the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981, and secretaries from Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh, has not led to any new pollution control plan than the one agreed to when pollution had peaked last winter.
Speaking to the press after the meeting, environment secretary Ajay Narayan Jha said that crop, burning, dust pollution, road and building dust, industrial and vehicular pollution were discussed at the meeting.