Air Pollution In Delhi: 5 Factors To Consider

Air pollution is seen as the price we pay for modernisation, and a part and parcel of urban living. In India, Delhi's air, for instance, is often labelled toxic owing to presence of particulates that can lower your life expectancy and quality of life. According to Greenpeace's air quality monitoring survey of September 2015, the deadly PM2.5 levels in Delhi are 10 times higher than the safety limit prescribed by the World Health Organisation (WHO) , and four times higher than the Indian safety limit. To work out strategies to curb pollution levels in the city, the Delhi government and green panels will meet on November 4.

Also Read: Delhi-NCR Gets New Common Pollution Codes

While we await the outcomes of the meet, PropGuide lists factors, which Delhi and other Indian cities can probe to effectively mitigate air pollution:

Overpopulation is one of the major reasons why cities are polluted. But overpopulation and population density are not directly connected to each other. A dense city need not be crowded if real estate developers are allowed to build on a greater floor space. Shanghai and New York today are less crowded than they were when highrises were not the norm.

Typically, people would not prefer to walk to mass transit stations if the time taken to walk is greater than 12 minutes. According to former World Bank researcher Alain Bertaud, people can traverse an area of nearly 100 hectares in 12 minutes. So, density should be at least 300 people per hectare for 30,000 people to be able to access a metro station. If this is true, mass transit stations may be allowed higher floor space index (FSI) near metro corridors. This can allow more people to walk or use mass transit than personal vehicles, lowering pollution levels.

Traffic management is essential to lower pollution levels, especially in Indian cities where land areas are not contiguous, though density is high. A primary reason Indian cities are polluted is poor traffic management. Singapore's air is less polluted, though it is the second densest city in the world and have more vehicles per capita because it has better traffic management rules, electronic congestion pricing and better roads.

High capital gains tax is another reason why roads are polluted. When capital gains tax is high, landowners are likely to keep valuable urban land idle, lowering the supply of land, and hence, the rise in population density and traffic congestion. This also leads to inefficient use of urban land.

Also Read: How Effective Was Delhi's 'Odd' Formula In Getting Even With Air Pollution?

Many South Asian cities are more polluted than cities in the West because investment in public infrastructure,especially in transportation networks, is low, when compared to per capita income. In India, for instance, investment in public transport is low when compared to the investment in public transport in countries of comparable per capita income in Africa. This leads to more congested roads, poor drainage systems and water supply.