Factoid of Dismal Nights
Dunu Roy

He was manager (Environment) of one of the most modern cement plants in the country, trying to convince me of his company’s dedication to the commendable cause of pollution control.  “Every time I come to Delhi,” he said earnestly, “I become more concerned about the state of the environment.  Whenever I go out of the office into the city, I order my driver to roll up the windows and turn on the air-conditioning!”

He is an archetype of the numerous “environmentalists” who infest the page of the newspapers, each with her on his ready prescription for the appalling problems that beset this capital city.  Quick-fix cures range from planting trees to cleaning the backs of refrigerators and wearing filter masks to work.  Stockholm to Rio, Indira Gandhi to Kamal Nath, the age has spawned a host of the experts of environmental hogwash.  Perhaps it was in order to cut down on the total quantum of rubbish that the editor has advised me to restrict myself to “1 A-4 size pages”.   Will that be enough to examine all the effluents and emissions – both literal and metaphorical?

“Population”, of course is universally proclaimed to be the biggest culprit. But how do you get rid of all those people?  Between 1981 and 1991, there were 32 lakh more people in the city, and half of those were migrants, of which 60% claimed squatter’s rights because they had no place to go.  Jagmohan tried to get rid of them in 1976.  He kicked 1.3 lakh families out of a total of 1.5 lakhs across the Yamuna, but by 1990 there were 2.3 lakh squatter families.

Today there are 70% living in sub-standard housing.  What Jagmohan knew, did not account for in his planning, is that these people did not come to Delhi for a lark-they came for work.  One-third of the population is employed in 1000 government offices, 25,000 wholesale shops, 89,000 industries, and over 3 lakh other “enterprises”.  Delhi’s kind of entrepreneurship needs such a vast (and cheap) labour force.  The Rs. 1000 crore investment in the 1982 Asiad alone attracted 10 lakh  migrants.  If these people were to really leave, Delhi would totally collapse.

If so many people are going to live in all parts of the city, they are going to need some services, however minimal.  One of those essentials is water,  and it is remarkable how much Delhi consumes (from the Yamuna, the Ganga, the Sutlej, and underground).  Per capital demand has risen steadily from 24 gcd  (gallons per capital per day) in 1941 to 70 gcd  in 1993, and increases of 3 times.  The international standard is 80 gcd, while Delhi’s planners have set a minimum quota of 30 gcd.  But, horrendously enough, one-third of the citizens get less than 10 gcd, many get as little as 4 gcd, and a favoured few in the elite areas get over 120 gcd.  Clearly, if 70% are going to be forced to be living in sub-standard housing, they are not going to get much water either.

Whenever water is used it will get dirty  and eventually  flow out in the river as sewage.  It is interesting that this has risen from 32.7 gcd in 1961 to only 45.3 in 1991.  In other words, a lot of water that is being used is not finding its way back into the sewers.  It is either going into the ground (parks, golf courses),  or evaporation (air coolers), or being used up in industrial products (soap).  Half of the water is reported to be lost in the distribution system itself and much of it is going down to pollute the ground water.  Clearly,  therefore, the key to the twin problems of water shortage and water pollution lies in reducing the use of water itself.  But that would mean going back to an earlier regime of sensible water use rather than ‘forward’  to the glories of international markets.

Similarly trends can be spotted in the case of energy consumption.  Delhi’s per capita consumption of power has dramatically increased from 58kWh in 1958 to 750kWh in 1991, over 4 times the national average.  14.2 lakh domestic consumers  get 41% as compared to 43%  supplied  to 2.8 lakh commercial and industrial consumers.  Here too,  it is therefore evident that an earlier pattern of sensible energy use will have to be remodelled if the unbearable environmental pressure that Delhi exerts on natural resources is to be remedied.

Delhi purchases much of its power from hydel and thermal plants all over the North,  but it also generates part of its requirement at 3 thermal power plants in or near the city.  Burning coal means air pollution and these power plants contribute 16%  of the total pollutants released into the atmosphere.  Better energy utilisation will,  therefore,  have some contribution towards cleanser air.  However, the biggest culprit is transportation which throws  out both particles (often coated with toxins like lead) and noxious gases 9carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, nitrogen dioxide).  The growth of vehicles in Delhi is staggering.  The capital now has 5  persons to a vehicle, as compared to 2 for Bombay and 55 for Madras.  Of the 19.2 lakh vehicles,  12.3  lakh are two –wheelers.  It is , therefore, not surprising that 81%  of the vehicular pollution is emitted petrol burning vehicles.  The culprits are not, as armchair ecologists  would have as believe, either the 20,000 buses  or the 17 lakh bicycles  in the city.  On the contrary, they do a remarkable job of cleanly and cheaply transporting 80%  of the computers.  Hence, the most cost-effective way to remedy  the pollution of the air would be to promote mass transport,  based essentially on the bus and the cycle and to clamp down heavily on that symbol of  personal freedom – the private 2 or 4 wheeler.

The cost of personal freedom – whether  of air or water or land or flora and fauna – is otherwise very high. There is  one hospital statistically  available for every 1.16 lakh people today, but their records indicate that the major killers in Delhi are Tuberculosis and Bronchitis.  Ever since 700 lives were lost in a jaundice epidemic in 1955,  there has been some attention paid to water quality,  but the biggest disease is Bronchitis,  followed by stomach disorders (Gastro-entritis, Amoebiasis, Typhoid),  and then Tuberculosis.  These are all environmental maladies and trying to save a few trees in Defence Colony  just will not do.  While the 956 ha of the South and Central Ridge figure in the mass media  because the leisured class do their bird-watching there, it is conveniently  forgotten  that 6200 ha of the less visible Southern Ridge is horribly degraded, 34%  of the district parks have been taken over by DDA for real estate, and the 1.6 km wide green belt circling Delhi has virtually disappeared.  All for the development of residential and industrial complexes.

Three A-4 sheets have gone and there are no magic wands in sight.  The truth is that pollution in Delhi is the product of 80 years of venality, cupidity, and the politics of money-grubbing.  There are the 10%  who have made their pile  and are early looking forward to Dunkel to make more; there are the 20% who assisted in making these fortunes but did not get much more than a fridge and a scooter and a dowry for a daughter.  But the vast majority of Delhi’s citizens remain forever outside the gates of the fabled city.  It is their labour that cares for the metropolis but the metropolis does not care for them.  This is the cauldron in which breeds the germs of social violence – of kidnappings and terrorists and epidemics, of black-cats and red-lines and condoms in Tihar.  And while the world of real-politic  simmers in the vote-banks of the Idgah, the pretty children of the pretty people wave their leafy  arms on the stages of “public”  school auditoria imploring the nasty woodcutter (invariably poor and inevitably ‘ignorant’) to pretty please not cut them.  We could all die laughing.

Dunu Roy is currently the Dean of Research at the People Science Institute, Dehradun.  He was earlier with the Pollution Control Division of WWF-India.
 

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