Unintended consequence: The poor face the brunt of pollution control

As civic authorities in the Delhi-National Capital Region (Delhi-NCR) imposed the highest level of the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP 4) when air quality slipped into the “severe” category, thousands of construction workers became the victims of pollution twice over. Among other things, GRAP 4 proscribes construction activities. Though the decision ostensibly reflects concern for public health, its ad hoc imposition without notice not only stalls construction projects and pushes up costs but leaves thousands of workers, the bulk of them migrants and daily-wage workers, without a livelihood for an indefinite period. The unintended consequences of this well-intentioned but poorly thought through veto was amply demonstrated last week when hundreds of construction workers protested outside the Delhi lieutenant governor’s office, demanding compensation for their enforced idleness as a result of GRAP 4.

 

This protest, organised by the Building Workers’ Union, an affiliate of the left-oriented All India Central Council of Trade Unions, underlines how public policies often overlook the concerns of vulnerable sections. Construction workers are the most vocal (and better-organised) section of disadvantaged people to be impacted by GRAP 4 bans. Less noticed are the bans on the impromptu fires, which warm hundreds of guards around upscale condominiums and facilities as the nights turn colder and bans on coal stoves used by poorer households. The irony of the increasingly draconian restrictions recommended by the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) is that they do not appreciably improve air quality. Despite GRAP 4, the needle on air quality has moved from “severe” to “very poor” and, on occasion, “poor”. These changes are deemed “improvements” but insufficiently optimum to justify removing GRAP controls. The conundrum facing civic authorities is that atrocious air quality persists even though incidents of paddy-stubble burning, once deemed the key cause of winter air pollution, have notably diminished, thanks to actions, though belated, by state governments. In this respect, two other issues are emerging to this seemingly insoluble post-Diwali problem. The first is poor and inept policing to enforce the sale and bursting of crackers from Diwali through the long wedding season.

 

The second is an inability to improve traffic management so that vehicles do not idle for an inordinately long time at traffic signals. The inadequacy of public-transport infrastructure adds to the crisis. Given that construction bans are becoming the norm each winter, it is incumbent on state authorities to design a mechanism to compensate temporarily unemployed workers. Since 2020, all three NCR states have been charging a labour cess of 1 per cent of the cost on construction projects, ostensibly to spend the amount raised on labour-welfare schemes. The figures are not small; in 2023, for instance, Delhi collected Rs 4,200 crore from labour cess. Compensating workers laid off due to the GRAP 4 rule would be a good way to spend this money rather than on ephemeral welfare schemes that benefit few workers. The means to do so now exist via the database on the e-shram portal, on which unorganised sector workers can register, and compensating them should not be difficult, with states moving towards cash transfers. As with the pandemic lockdown, which impacted migrant labour for months to come, the most vulnerable sections of society should not be made to bear the consequences of what is clearly a policy failure.