Why Delhi Can't Copy Beijing's Air Pollution Fixes

The annual air pollution fever is upon us, and so also the flailing around for solutions. In Delhi, from December 18 onwards, no fuel can be bought without a vehicle having a Pollution Under Control certificate. Private vehicles without at least BS-VI standards will not be allowed in. And so forth. There are also exemptions, which tell you that nothing will change. Many years ago, the Aam Aadmi Party government instituted the odd-even plan for vehicle numbers that could ply a given day but left so many loopholes that the measure tanked. And once the air clears up a little, no one cares anyway, which is what will happen even now.

In the midst of all this, the spokesperson of the Chinese embassy in India put out social media posts on how her country fixed the problem of Beijing's once infamous air. The main pillars were extreme stringency about vehicle emissions and industrial restructuring. About the latter, the post said, 'Shut down or remove 3000+ heavy industries. Relocating Shougang, one of China’s largest steelmakers, alone cut inhalable particles by -20%...Relieve non-capital functions by relocating wholesale markets, logistics hubs and some educational & medical institutions.'

China fixed the problem but what that does not tell you is why it didn’t do so, say, 10 or 20 years earlier. What changed was that the country became a financial superpower and it now has wherewithal to do things like relocate industries out of Beijing. At the stage that India is right now, Beijing endured the poor air. Indians won’t switch over to electric vehicles en masse because it is just unaffordable. A petrol and diesel car is what has begun to fit into their pocket, and so they buy them. Or consider that trucks are one of the most polluting vehicles, but what will forcing all of them to be replaced do to transportation costs?

Meanwhile, shifting all non-capital-related functions from Delhi will immediately lead to the government being voted out in the next election, but the courts would anyway stay it. A messy democracy in the middle of its development phase is never going to be an easy place to freely breathe in.