Every Breath You Take

Delhi and its adjoining areas are facing an unprecedented crisis as pollution levels spiked to dangerous levels for days together, forcing the Supreme Court to intervene and summon officials from three states. Is there a way out?

- Papia Samajdar

ON October 28, 2019, the morning following Diwali, PM 2.5 levels in DelhiNCR breached the uppermost level of all existing measuring scales. If you were in Delhi-NCR in the week of Octo ber 28 to November 4, you were inhaling smoke from the equivalent of 44-55 cigarettes every day. Delhi is notorious for its reputation of turning into a gas chamber every year around this time, as pollution spikes to alarming levels.

How is it that the collective governments of Delhi, the NCR states and the central government are unable to tackle this crisis year after year? The crisis was so serious that the Supreme Court called for an emergency meeting on November 4, after PM 2.5 levels refused to come down from severeplus levels in 114 hours. “We are at a loss to understand why we are not able to create a situation in which this kind of pollution does not take place, that too in a routine manner every year,” questioned the bench, headed by Justices Arun Mishra and Deepak Gupta.

The Supreme Court called the inaction of state governments and the government and agencies of Delhi a “blatant violation” of the right to life of a sizeable population. The bench, in its order, stated that the governments of Delhi and the NCR states and agencies have disregarded the orders of this court and other courts. The bench attempted to fix the accountability for the states’ failure to curb farm residue burning that contributes heavily to this emergency. Stating that the situation is destroying the right to life in gross violation of Article 21 of the Constitution of India, the Court threatened to charge the entire administration, including the police staff, collectors, panchayats, chief secretary as well as those doing it, in case of any stubble burning incidents.