Can Delhi Go The Paris Way To Curb Air Pollution?

City of Love and France capital Paris is now a busy fighting the menace of air pollution and heavy smog that has blanketed its skyline. Paris is suffering its worst and most prolonged winter pollution for at least 10 years, media reported. Among the key reasons of this unprecedented increase in pollution levels is vehicle movement around the city centre.

In a move to curb vehicular pollution, the French capital has made all public transport free to use for everyone; the odd-even road space rationale on vehicles has been implemented. Above all, students and elderly have been asked to avoid outdoor activities and special doctor consultation clinics have been set up for the help and to study the impact on health for next nine days.

Similar weather conditions were witnessed in Delhi sometime back when the city was fighting the same menace which is more gruesome than Paris. The concentration of Particulate Matter 10 (PM 10) was 95 micrograms per cubic metre (µg/m3) while in Delhi, PM 10 concentration was 399 µg/m3 — almost five times that of Paris.

Environmentalists, authorities, ministries have come up with as many solutions but could do nothing to make the situation better, except banning the diesel generators and cars.

While the Delhi government implemented the odd-even formula in January 2016, nothing of that kind came up again even when the conditions deteriorated after the Diwali celebrations.

Green court banned construction

As the pollution level crossed the danger level, National Green Tribunal (NGT) banned all construction practices in the National Capital, initally for 7 days which was extended for few more days, before Lieutenant Governor lifted it. Since a fair share of pollution and dust is caused by building activities, all kind of private and government construction were halted for a time period. This was never seen, never implemented before initiative to bring pollution level in control. Before this, NGT has laid down few best practices to be followed at construction sites which include water sprinkling, covering of trucks carrying building material etc. However, laxity in following rules diluted the importance of these measures. 

Learning the Paris way'

Delhi's population is five times that of Paris. So, the exact adoption of measures cannot be a possibility in the city. However, the odd-even scheme could be a great measure to implement. On the other hand, upgrading public transport, increasing the frequency of DTC (Delhi Transport Corporation) buses and Delhi Metro trains, encouraging carpools, promoting walk-to-work culture, subsidising eco-friendly and electric cars are some of the other measures that can be taken to cut down the vehicular pollution in the national capital.

However, with ten times smaller geographical area, tough measures are easier to implement in Paris. For a city like Delhi, a better strategy has to be planned to implement similar policies.

Also read

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

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