Clearing the air

Like Delhi, neighbouring Noida also devised ways to fight pollution. The author finds out how effective the measures were

During the time Delhi experiment with the odd-even formula in an attempt to clean up the city's air, one of its immediate neighbours went on an air purifying drive of its own. Unlike Delhi, the administration of Gautam Budh Nagar, which covers Noida and Greater Noida, however, did not choose to take odd and even numbered cars off the road every alternate day. Instead, it decided to completely shut down different parts of the city on different days or alter working days and timings of markets, schools, factories and corporate offices.

These staggered work days and work hours have in the last two weeks ensured that fewer vehicles are on the road at a given time. The two-week pilot project took off on January 1 and Gautam Budh Nagar District Magistrate N P Singh says there is a possibility it might be attempted again after consulting all the stakeholders and studying its impact on pollution.

School timings were staggered, with primary and senior sections of the school opening and closing at different timings. "We also introduced a half-hour gap between the opening and closing times of schools in the same area," says Singh.

Weekly holidays for markets were altered. So, on a Wednesday, when Noida's local Atta Market is ordinarily bustling with activity, the shutters on shops were down. The narrow alleys of the market, where people looking for a bargain jostle with one another for space, were deserted. And the main road and parking area were empty. Akshay Awana, a first-year college student who commutes through this area every day, is happy that he does not have to encounter the usual traffic jams on Wednesday. "This place is always dusty, dirty and choking with vehicular fumes. But on this Wednesday and the last (while the project was on), the air felt clean," he says.

Similarly, Noida's busy Sector 18 market remained closed on Tuesday, and on Saturday, the congested Rajnigandha Chowk bore a deserted look.

The experiment has gone down well with people. "It's better than Delhi's odd-even formula," says Prem Sharma, owner of Cafe 27 in Noida. "The administration has succeeded in keeping roads decongested and bringing vehicular pollution down without inconveniencing people." The National Green Tribunal too has been advocating variable office hours to bring pollution levels down.

Two weeks, however, are too little to gauge whether the idea has worked on the ground - or on the air. When the initiative was launched, Singh had said it would bring pollution levels down by 30 to 40 per cent. The tests conducted during the course of the experiment revealed that the overall pollution levels were down by about 10 per cent, "which is a start," says Singh.

According to the World Health Organisation, outdoor air pollution prematurely killed 3.7 million people across the world in 2012. Like Delhi, Noida and Greater Noida have only just woken up to this threat.

"We are looking at a situation where the pollution levels are five to six times above acceptable limit," says Leena Srivastava, executive director, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI). "What Noida is attempting now, Delhi already has in place - staggered working days of markets." While in these two weeks, Delhi and Noida have shown that behavioural change is possible and demand for vehicles can be managed, "there is no silver bullet, or single approach solution, to the problem we are in," says Srivastava.

Use of public transport has to be encouraged and incentivised, for which, she says, the corporate sector must be taken on board. The Gautam Budh Nagar administration has asked large companies to provide eco-friendly, CNG-run transport to 90 per cent of their employees.

Los Angeles, once notorious for its smog, had turned its air quality around by adopting cleaner fuel. Mexico, once declared by the United Nations as the world's most polluted city, did it through the "Hoy No Circula (today, [your car] does not circulate)" formula. Delhi and its neighbours have their task cut out.