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Delhi pollution measures draw flak

Delhi is the fourth most polluted city in the world, yet the Delhi government's pollution control drive has mostly consisted of ''knee-jerk reactions'' which inconvenience commuters and create chaos on the roads, says an official study.

The study on the efficacy of the existing pollution checking system in Delhi by the Central Road Research Institute has found the infrastructure inadequate, the norms for emission standards too liberal and the authenticity of the "pollution under control" certificates issued by certain authorised stations doubtful.

''In Delhi, the DoT (the department of transport) has most often resorted to knee-jerk reactions, in the form of occasional pollution checking drives, rather than consistent and regular pollution checking and enforcement. In addition to causing a lot of discomfort and inconvenience to the general public, such pollution checking drives also create unruly situation on the roads,'' says the study led by CRRI's head of environment and road traffic safety B L Suri.

It notes that there are about 325 authorised pollution checking centres for petrol driven vehicles and 30 for diesel-driven vehicles.

''Approximately 10 cent of the 325 centres for petrol driven vehicles either do not function due to financial inviability or due to cancellation of authorisation by the department of transport,'' the report said.

It adds that the capital requires 532 pollution checking centres to meet the present need of petrol driven vehicles and at least 20 more should be opened each year.

The statistics indicate that every existing pollution checking centre is supposed to check and issue PUC certificates to about 125 vehicles, but with the present working hours and manpower deployment, at the most 70 PUC checks can be carried out in a day.

''Most of the authorised checking centres have admitted (they are) carrying out approximately 25 to 45 checks every day.''

Moreover, to increase profitability, most pollution checking centres employ only an authorised signatory who also does the job of adjusting the air/fuel ratio instead of hiring a trained mechanic to do so.

To offset cost and increase profit margins, most pollution checking centres often use filters after they are due for replacement. The use of clogged filters could affect exhaust emission drastically and lead to incorrect measurements and issue of PUC certificates.

Pollution checking centre owners also admitted that as enforcement from traffic police increases, the number of vehicles coming for checking goes up, reflecting their dependence on the authorities's sporadic ''pollution checking drives''.

The substantial difference in the percentage of vehicles passing the emission tests at the transport department's checking centres and the authorised ones give an indication of the malpractice involved, the study said.

As against the compliance percentage of 70 to 75 per cent recorded by the DoT centres, the authorised centres registered 90 to 95 per cent vehicles conforming to emission standards.

The CRRI study also terms the existing vehicle emission standards for different categories of in-use petrol driven vehicles as ''quite liberal'', requiring little ''inspection/maintenance'' to meet them.

Also, no standards have been specified for hydrocarbon emissions for these categories of vehicles. No standards have been specified separately for two wheelers equipped with four-stroke engines and four wheelers fitted with catalytic converters or using compressed natural gas as fuel, it adds.

Delhi is the fourth most polluted city in the world and the quantity of pollutants emitted from the transportation sector in the capital is more than the sum of the vehicular emissions in Bombay, Calcutta and Madras.

Also, it is estimated that vehicular emissions account for 64 per cent of the total pollution loads in Delhi, followed by thermal power plants (16 per cent), industries (12) and the domestic sector (seven per cent).

These vehicles account for 97 per cent of hydrocarbon, 48 per cent of oxides of nitrogen and 76 per cent of carbon monoxide emission in the air.

Hydrocarbon emissions are very high because of the large number of two wheelers, which constitute about 70 per cent of the total three million number of vehicles registered in Delhi.

The increasing level of air pollution, particularly from vehicles, is responsible for higher incidence of heart diseases, cancer and other respiratory diseases.

''The seriousness of the problem can be gauged from the fact that 30 per cent of the patients visiting outpatient departments in almost all the hospitals of Delhi were suffering from one or the other respiratory problem. Also, the incidence of lung cancer has also been reported to have reached an alarming level of 12 per 100,000 population in Delhi which is 12 times higher than the national average,'' the CRRI study quoted a government of India report as saying.

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