Delhi Smog Lessons for Hyderabad

A talk by Sagar Dhara on the recent suffocation due to smog faced by the citizen’s of Delhi and lessons for Hyderabad. November 26, 2016 10:30 am Saturday, LaMakaan

Sagar Dhara is the head of Hyderabad based Cerana Foundation, a think tank on energy, environment and development, which also helps populations at risk from environmental stressors.

Organizer: LaMakaan Programming Team
Link to the event on the LaMakaan site http://www.lamakaan.com/events/3589
Also listed on Facebook.

Abstract

When in Delhi, don’t breathe

Delhi is a semi fossil-fuelled city.  Large parts of Delhi, particularly the older city, have narrow streets built for carts and pedestrians and are unsuitable for motorized vehicles, yet are crowded by them today.  The average annual windspeed in Delhi is half to a quarter that of the windspeeds in developed country cities.  Both factors contribute to poor dispersion of air pollutants, and consequently to the high pollution levels in Delhi.

Like other cities in middle-level developing countries, Delhi has the financial resources to have polluting technologies as they make profit for businesses, but not the resources to do pollution cleanup as well as maintain expected profit returns.  India’s position on the Kuznet’s curve is still on the ascending leg of the curve.   The consequence is an under-valuation of the environment and lack of adequate will to protect it.

Cleaning Delhi’s air pollution has failed so far.  The path that North countries took, polluting first and cleaning up later will not work in Delhi.  The best way to have a clean Delhi is by not polluting it in the first place.  This is better done by administrative controls rather than by engineering controls (improving prime mover technology and fuel quality).  An example of an administrative control is the reducing of travel trip distance and frequency by mandating that children attend neighbourhood schools, and shutting coaching classes.  This can reduce fuel burning by 25 million liters and save Rs 150 crores per annum.  The additional benefits will be improved educational standards in all schools and inter-mixing of children of different backgrounds.

Such administrative controls can be enhanced by empowering Delhi’s citizens to manage their environment, rather than leave it the Delhi Pollution Control Board that has been inept in discharging its mandate.  An example of involving Delhi’s citizens in managing their environment is by allowing them to monitor their community air quality with passive samplers that are cheap yet accurate, and encouraging discussion amongst parents on local FM radio channels when there are  spikes in children’s respiratory illnesses and on how to reduce them.

Delhi’s air pollution cleanup must include mitigating long range transported air pollutants generated by Delhi that affects its hinterland and vice versa.  Studies indicate that Delhi’s air pollutants reduce crop yields by as much as 15-40% in a 60-70 km radius around Delhi and that Delhi receives air pollutants from distances of more than 500 km.

Cleanup solutions must also include air pollutants generated by Delhi’s consumption of a variety of goods and services that are produced at distance locations and that impact their surrounding receptors.  Delhi must also pay for the price for cleaning up the criteria air pollutants and carbon dioxide emitted by 5,500 MW of power generated at different locations in North India.  The bill for such a cleaning these pollutants will be in the thousands of crore rupees.

Air pollution in Hyderabad is not as bad as that in Delhi. But Hyderabad’s problems are similar to Delhi’s; and so are the solutions.

The author belongs to the most rapacious predator species that ever stalked the earth-humans, and to a net destructive discipline—engineering, that has to take more than a fair share of the responsibility for bringing earth and human society to the twin tipping points—global warming and peak oil. His email id is sagdhara@yahoo.com