DELHI, INDIA – North India’s air quality index (AQI) is rising sharply, having already crossed 300 in parts of the region, indicating “very poor” levels. And it is expected to worsen as winds shift towards Delhi and farmers intensify their autumnal practice of burning crop waste. 

The sharp seasonal increases have come yet again this year in Delhi, India’s capital, despite Delhi’s state government announcing a more comprehensive annual Winter Action Plan compared to previous years. 

The widespread practice of exploding firecrackers will likely add to worsening pollution loads during the upcoming Hindu festival of Diwali, celebrated at the end of the month, taking the AQI over 400, or “severe” for prolonged periods. The AQI index reflects a composite of hazardous pollutants, including fine particulates (PM2.5), ozone (O3), and nitrogen dioxide (NO2). 

In three different sessions over the past three weeks, India’s Supreme Court lashed out at the federal government’s Commission on Air Quality Management (CAQM) for failing to take enough pre-emptive action.  It specifically censured the Commission for its continued impotence in controlling rice crop stubble burning – a still widespread practice in rural provinces which spreads smoke across the region.  

In its last hearing on Wednesday, the Supreme Court specifically set a one-week deadline to prosecute violators and slammed the northern state governments of Punjab and Haryana for failing to stop farmers from burning crop stubble, despite repeated directives by the Court. 

On 14 October, the Delhi state government, meanwhile, banned manufacturing, storage and selling of firecrackers until January 1, 2025. But routinely low enforcement of those rules typically encourages widespread evasion. And outside of Delhi, neighbouring states haven’t taken action.  

Rising pollution levels follow three months of relative respite 

The rising pollution levels follow three months of relative respite. 

From July to September, AQI levels ranged from “moderate” (101-200) to even “satisfactory” (51-100),  including days of the cleanest air quality that New Delhi and most of north India has seen this year, thanks largely to an extended period of monsoon rains. 

But then by the end of September, air pollution levels began their seasonal rise once more,  foretelling another annual crisis.  

The Supreme Court’s directives to the CAQM, are unlikely to make a significant difference, say experts and activists. The body is unlikely to heed its orders and individual officials usually aren’t held personally accountable to the court. And the Delhi state government’s Winter Action Plan, expanded to 21 action points this year from 15 last year, remains feeble and ineffectual.

“The Supreme Court may have best intentions – but it really comes down to who is going to make it happen. I don’t see decisions taken in court solving anything,” Jai Dhar Gupta, a Delhi-based activist, told Health Policy Watch. 

Air pollution levels could even be worse than previous years

It’s an annual story that continues to be repeated over the past decade or more. In the autumn months, India’s south-westerly monsoons recede, winds still and temperatures fall trapping pollution closer to the ground.  At the same time, rural crop burning begins and household heating commences, gripping the landlocked Himalayan foothills and Indo-Gangetic plain in a toxic haze as PM2.5 level soar. The 700,000 square kilometre region is home to half a billion Indians, as well as hundreds of millions more people in Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh who share the airshed. 

After a dip in average pollution levels in 2023 across India, there have been hopes that positive trends would continue. 

But with the continued lack of action at pollution sources, key air quality scientists who spoke to Health Policy Watch, and asked not to be named, were not optimistic. 

Some were even predicting that average pollution levels in the upcoming winter could be much worse than in previous years, especially as the India Meteorological Department is predicting a colder winter 2024. But freak weather patterns of meteorology, temperatures, wind and humidity can change things unexpectedly. 

Gupta, who tracks the pollution indicators closely, also is not optimistic. 

“According to the (meteorological) predictors I’ve been following, I’m expecting winds to turn on the 23rd (October). The entire Indo -Gangetic plain will be in the downwind path of the smoke from farm fires. It’s going to be hell.”  

Dust-related air pollution in decline – not combustion 

The pessimistic projections come as something of a wake up call – since some recent analyses have suggested that India’s air pollution levels were finally in a period of decline. 

Data presented at a seminar hosted by the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago in September showed a drop in average PM 2.5 and PM 10 concentrations from 2019-2023. 

However, most of that decline was attributable to new dust control measures undertaken in cities. And at the same time, combustion sources and their emissions have been increasing business as usual.  

That has been reflected in current economic indicators – which show increases in sales and consumption of diesel, petrol, coal and imports of petcoke, a byproduct of oil refining, used in manufacturing – all key pollution producers. 

“While we are seeing a drop in PM 2.5 mainly coming from the dust management activities in the cities, on the fossil fuel combustion side, the story is still continuing,” said the prominent Indian air quality researcher Sarath Guttikunda, at a University of Chicago webinar panel presentation in September. 

Farmers as a political tinderbox – and that has limited agricultural reforms 

The nuanced look at the trends underlines how more fundamental reforms in key pollution contributors have advanced in fits and starts.  

Crop stubble burning at its peak can contribute up to 30% of the pollution load of adjoining cities. But farmers are a political tinderbox for all political parties. 

Attempts to reduce crop-burning emissions at source, by incentivizing farmers to process their rice crop stubble, turn it into compost, or plant more traditional and less water-intensive legumes and other crops, have been underway. 

But they have still failed to really take off, says Gupta, due politicians’ fears of confronting the powerful farm lobby. “Who is going to have that conversation with farmers?” he asks, a nod to the political clout Indian farmers have. “No party wants to lead on health and environment,” he says.  

For example, the Aam Aadmi Party, which currently rules Delhi and won Punjab State in 2022, spent years blaming Punjab’s then-governing Congress Party for failing to restrain farmers from burning crop residue. 

However, it is now strangely silent – because its own party’s government has been unable to solve the problem in Punjab as well.

Other observers note that some progress was seen in 2023 in curbing crop stubble burning through increased fines and enforcement.  No-burn incentives were also offered in Punjab State to make alternative means of processing the crop waste more financially attractive. But it remains to be seen whether that trend will continue this autumn. 

Post-monsoon seasonal fire prediction (Oct+Nov) for 2024 over NW India has arrived.#Aqua #MODIS Sep NDVI data suggests ~15,500-18,500 fire occurrences (1-km detection) strictly under “as usual burning” practice (2002-2016)—comparable to 2020 but lower than in 2016 & 2021. pic.twitter.com/GFsfBNSGcJ

— Hiren Jethva (@hjethva05) October 1, 2024

Even so, the Supreme Court recently lashed out at the CAQM sharply for its failure to curb stubble burning in both Punjab and Haryana states, noting that changes have not gone nearly far enough. 

Urban air quality plans also falling short

On another front, the country’s National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) has fallen far short of fallen far short of its goals, according to a recent report by the Indian Center for Science and Environment.  

Amongst the 131 cities covered by NCAP, most have so far failed to meet the target of reducing air pollution concentrations by 20-30% as compared to 2017 levels. 

And the lion’s share of the investments made were focused on dust control measures, such as paving roads, filling potholes, and deploying mechanical sprinklers and sweepers, the CSE report shows. Less than 1% was spent on controlling toxic emissions from sources like industry, and around 40% of funds weren’t spent at all. 

At the same time, the government’s own data has shown that more than 50% of all sanctioned posts in state pollution control boards and committes are lying vacant, reflecting the continuing lack of investment in strategic planning to clean India’s air. 

Reactive, short-term measures 

That has left state and national government officials scrambling to institute mostly reactive, short-term actions, such as temporary curbs on construction, traffic and physical activity, when a crisis actually hits. 

Called “Graded Response Action Plans,” these actions are triggered when AQI breaches “poor,” “very poor,” and “severe” levels.

This year’s 21-step ‘Winter Action Plan’ also includes deploying drones to monitor pollution hot spots, creating artificial rain and instituting “green” awards in addition to the tried (and failed) steps of road traffic rationing and construction dust mitigation  – none of which address an actual reduction of emissions at source. 

“They’re now talking cloud seeding! It just makes no sense at all. Ridiculous!,” says Gupta.

Delhi also has set up ‘smog towers’, at huge public cost, which were supposed to act like outdoor air purifiyers, absorbing pollution, but in fact lie practically defunct. Citizen groups have long stated that these are entirely unsupported by science. 

“As far as the Delhi government’s winter action plan is concerned, it is a very feeble attempt to look like they’re doing something. There is no meat in it,” Gupta said.

“Given the Aam Aadmi Party has been in power [in Delhi] for the last ten years, what is clear is this; either they don’t care enough to fix it – or they are plain incompetent,” he added, referring to the opposition party that controls the Delhi state government as well as a key pollution-producing rural state, Punjab. 

“This isn’t rocket science. Beijing and Mexico brought their pollution down,” he said, adding in the same breath “but at least Delhi is talking about doing something – others – Haryana and Uttar Pradesh – aren’t even doing that,” he said, referring to other states with heavy pollution loads from crop stubble burning, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party holds the balance of power.

Local emissions also a big background contributor 

In cities like Delhi, the background pollution load also remains unsustainably high –  even before seasonal contributors like stubble burning, firecrackers, and biomass heating began to make things worse.

“If you just take Delhi today – 20 million people, 10 million cars, 20,000 tonnes of waste, increasing construction, burning brick kilns – nothing has changed on the ground that could lead to reduced emissions,” said one data scientist who has been tracking India’s pollution for nearly 25 years and predicts another highly polluted north Indian winter. 

“There has been no behaviour change either. So why would the base pollution load decline? It’s just going up.”

This was apparent in early October, for instance, when the AQI had sharply worsened even before smoke from a single firecracker or farm fire had begun to drift towards the city.  

This wasn’t because farmers hadn’t started burning crop stubble – satellite images showed that they had. But wind direction (being south-westerly) was still blowing smoke away from north India’s areas of highest population density. 

Within the next week, wind direction will change, bringing more and more smoke from burning fields in neighbouring states – directly to urban centres in the National Capital Region, and into the lungs of the 46 million people living there. From this point, things are likely to spiral downwards, like they do every year.

Despite bans in Delhi, firecrackers celebrating the annual Hindu Diwali festival, India’s biggest festival, will smother the north Indian plains with even higher pollution levels around the 31 of October.  Post-Diwali, PM2.5 peaks of 3,000 microns have been recorded on some days in past years. And these levels will remain persistently high, with some troughs and peaks, until nature comes to the rescue in January with winds, rains and rising temperatures. 

Delhi is seen as ground zero – but levels may be higher elsewhere

According to the 2024 Air Quality Life Index, produced by the University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute (EPIC), the exposure of northern Indians’ to excessive levels of PM2.5 results in nearly 12 years lost of life expectancy, as compared to what it would be if the WHO Air Quality guideline for PM2.5 of 5 micrograms/cubic metre (5 µg/m3), as an annual average, were met. 

For Indians overall, life expectancy is cut by around 5.3 years from exposure to the tiny particles, which penetrate the lungs and travel through the blood stream to almost every organ of the body – causing strokes and hypertension, as well as lung diseases and cancers.   

Among India’s metropolitan areas, New Delhi’s ‘National Capital Region’, with its high population density and proximity to national government offices, is probably the most closely measured and monitored city for air quality.  

While Delhi has typically been the poster child for the region’s pollution woes, experts have often pointed out that there are many areas in north India that may even be more polluted than Delhi – due to lack of precise measurement, slip under the radar, experts note. 

CAQM – a ‘toothless tiger’ 

In its three weeks ago, the Court specifically referenced the CAQM saying it has vast powers including directing closure of polluting units, which it wasn’t using. “There has been total non-compliance of the CAQM Act. Have committees been constituted? Please show us a single step taken. Which directions have you used under the Act? You are silent spectators. You are doing nothing,” the court said. 

Observers note that while the Supreme Court can issue directives, it is up to the state, its politicians and bureaucrats (especially the police) to ensure implementation and enforcement. 

And that is not the case, as the Court noted by its own admission in yet another hearing last Wednesday, when it called out the air quality bureaucrats of the CAQM as a “toothless tiger”.

Image Credits: Flickr, Aqicn.org, CEEW/compiled from data by the CBCP/unpublished, University of Chicago , University of Chicago/EPIC Clean Air Program, Neil Palmer, Care for Air India.