How effective was the ban on firecrackers in combating Delhi’s pollution? | India News

NEW DELHI: Air pollution comes in many forms and is caused by various factors. That’s what confuses the battle to contain it. For at least a decade, the capital of India has witnessed a frenzy of promises and pronouncements, interspersed with various hasty and half-hearted measures, during the winter months to control pollution. Yet the air in Delhi, and most of northern India, remains as stale as ever.

One of the steps in which there is almost consensus is the ban on the use of firecrackers on Diwali. The dangers of exposing millions of people to direct and intense pollution are justified in imposing a near-last-minute ban on the sale of firecrackers that endanger the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of workers and traders who depend on the industry. . As the graphic below shows, a quick search for Jasjeev Gandhiok The TOI finds that such bans had little or no effect on pollution control.

However, it could be argued that in the absence of a ban on firecrackers, the contamination would have been worse.
What is beyond dispute is that simply imposing such bans is far from appropriate and the governments of all northern Indian states must go beyond the annual pretense of taking short-term measures that have an impact. not tested on contamination.
One positive development was that nearly 20 states imposed some form of ban on the sale and use of firecrackers on Diwali this year. Hopefully the most coordinated efforts to reduce airborne poison will follow suit.

Meanwhile, the people in Delhi have no choice but to resort to desperate measures or internalize the inefficiency of governments as a daily joke.