Via The Guardian: Delhi driving restrictions in force from New Year's Day in bid to clear pollution. Excerpt:
Delhi is to implement a fortnight-long driving ban for certain cars from New Year’s Day in an experiment critics say falls far short of what is needed to lower the Indian capital’s lethal pollution levels.
For two weeks from Friday, only alternate-day travel will be permitted between 8am and 8pm for private cars with odd- and even-numbered licence plates, while thousands of trucks carrying commercial goods will be discouraged from driving through the city.
But the local government’s first major effort to clear Delhi’s air – the most polluted in the world, according to the WHO in 2014 – has been criticised by those who say sweeping exemptions render it inadequate.
The measure’s focus is on restricting passenger cars which, critics point out, account for only 10% of the air pollution. Moreover, 27 categories of motorists are exempt, including all female drivers, the prime minister, Narendra Modi, and his ministers.
Goods vehicles, which contribute 30%, will also be regulated. But more than 5 million motorcyclists have been spared, for fear their numbers would swamp the already over-burdened bus and metro system.
“This is just a beginning,” said Delhi’s state chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal. “We’ll have to undertake even sterner measures in the future to safeguard our health, and especially our children’s future. It has to become a movement.”
The most contested exemption is the one for female drivers, which officials say is to ensure women’s security. A court will now decide whether it is discriminatory to allow women to drive around Delhi while some of their male counterparts will be forced to leave their vehicles at home.
Though several factors have contributed to the dirtying of the city’s atmosphere, the authorities are focusing first on reducing car pollution, despite the fact that it has yielded mixed results when tested in other cities around the world.
While the Indian capital’s public transport system remains inadequate despite a new metro, there has been a surge in the number of private vehicles in recent years.
Many of the new cars and sports utility vehicles run on diesel, which is more polluting than petrol. A court has now banned the sale of big diesel cars for three months. There has also been a huge increase in the number of people commuting on motorbikes, which are responsible for nearly a third of the pollution.
The warning signs have long been there. In 2010 a top cancer institute in India warned in an authoritative report that nearly half of Delhi’s 4.4 million schoolchildren were growing up with irreversible lung damage. None of the recommendations by this government-commissioned study were implemented.
“If this goes on, we’ll have a stunted ... population,” said Sanjeev Bagai, a paediatric nephrologist. “Delhi kids have the lungs of chain-smokers.”
As of 8:00 p.m. Thursday night, local time, the current Delhi AQI in Mandir Marg is a lung-clogging 890. Here in North Vancouver, AQI is currently 7.
