Delhi Imposes Hasty Plans On People While Green Fund Lies Unused

An annual analysis by the Climate Action Tracker (CAT) research group says that China and India, counted among the world's top 32 carbon polluters that account for more than 80 per cent of global emissions, have accelerated the transition toward greener economies. While warning that the world might turn to be a much hotter place ─ temperatures may rise nearly half a degree Celsius by 2100 ─ if US President Donald Trump chose to pull out of the Paris accord, the report lauded the efforts of the other two economies. However impressive India's efforts might have been in this regard, the national capital saw pollution levels touching their worst levels at the outset of the winters.

Amid a great deal of clamour, uproar and blame-gaming, dumbfounded authorities quickly announced a slew of measures to deal with the toxic haze that has been hovering over the skies of the national capital region for two weeks now. In a state of emergency, a ban on construction activities was announced apart from the restriction on entry of trucks in the capital. Parking charges in Delhi were also increased four-fold to discourage people from using private vehicles. After announcing that it would re-launch the odd-even road space rationale back on the roads between November 13 and 17, the Delhi government had it withdraw its plan after a rap from the National Green Tribunal (NGT). The NGT disapproved of the exemption that was being offered to women drivers and the drivers of two-wheelers. Schools remained closed for a week.

In the middle of all this hasty decision-making, residents of Delhi choked. The normal life came to a complete halt. If the killer smog had left scope for gasping more for air, authorities filled it to complete the disaster. What is more disturbing to know is the fact that the state is apparently sitting on huge pile of unused “green fund” collected from the public to “combat” air pollution.

According to a Press Trust of India report, this green fund is flush with about Rs 1,500 crore. Till November 10, Rs 1,003 crore has been collected as an Environment Compensation Charge (ECC) ─ this levy was imposed by the Supreme Court in 2015 on trucks entering Delhi. The remaining amount is made up of the cess imposed on diesel sale that has been in effect since 2008.

It is only now that the authorities are planning to make some use of the money lying in this fund.

"We will use the fund for electric mobility. E-buses are very costly upfront and need to be subsidised in the first phase. Subsequently, running them does not entail much expenditure," an official was quoted as saying in the PTI report. There is no clarity on how many electric buses will be bought and how much money will be spent to do so.

Here is what else will be done with this fund:

*Around Rs 120 crore from the ECC corpus will also be used to install radio-frequency identification devices (RFID) on trucks for an effective and credible collection of levy and the ECC, according to a 2016 Supreme Court order.      

*The CPCB plans to use a part of its green fund, collected as the diesel cess, for conducting studies on improvement and management of air quality in the region. Around Rs 2.5 crore is being used in setting up pollution monitoring centres across the NCR.