Opinion | Long winter beckons as India fails to control air pollution amid lurking coronavirus dangers

Name: Smog returns to India’s capital New Delhi as winds drop and crops burn
Uploaded: 2020-11-04T01:45:14.000Z
Duration: 2 min 24 s
Description: Smog returns to India’s capital New Delhi as winds drop and crops burn

The combination of a restarted economy, weaker winds and burning crops has New Delhi back under a wave of smog, with citizens and firms paying the price

Attempts to emulate Beijing’s anti-pollution efforts have been hamstrung by ill-defined plans, poor implementation, political infighting and a lack of funding

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Men ride their bikes in front of the India Gate shrouded in smog in New Delhi on October 24. India’s government has announced ambitious plans to clean up the air in the capital and other cities, but it has produced little in terms of actionable plans. Photo: Reuters

Neeta Lal

Published: 9:45am, 4 Nov 2020Updated: 10:29am, 4 Nov 2020

US President Donald Trump’s recent reference to India and China’s “filthy air” has sent temperatures soaring across the South Asian nation of 1.3 billion while inviting comparisons on how the two neighbours are tackling their pollution woes.

No sooner did Trump’s missive go viral than Twitter timelines across India exploded with comments ranging from scathing to hilarious and introspective. While some lamented that Trump’s statement risked alienating a friendly country like India, others said that perhaps it would be better off cleaning up its appalling air instead of complaining.

The exhortation is not a day too soon. According to the 2019 World Air Quality Report by IQAir, a Swiss air technology company, New Delhi is the world’s most polluted capital. India also has 21 cities of the 30 with the world’s worst air pollution. In March, a study by the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur recorded 114,700 deaths in 29 cities attributed to outdoor pollution.

In Delhi, air quality index (AQI) levels of 200 are common, going well beyond the World Health Organization’s recommended upper limit of 25. They can even surge to 900 or go off the scale in winter when weak winds fail to disperse pollutants. Breathing Delhi’s air has been compared to smoking up to 50 cigarettes a day.

According to the State of the Global Air 2020 report, about 116,000 Indian infants died from air pollution in the first month of life. Long-term exposure to air pollution caused 1.67 million deaths across all age groups last year.

02:24

Smog returns to India’s capital New Delhi as winds drop and crops burn

The onset of winter can be a health nightmare in Delhi. A suffocating haze envelopes the metropolis, the result of vehicle fumes, industrial emissions and crop stubble burning in neighbouring states. Deadly gases such as nitrogen oxide, ozone, benzene, carbon monoxide and sulphur dioxide are released, along with particulate matter or tiny particles that lodge themselves deep within lungs to trigger illnesses.