By S Paul
It is usual to blame the motor vehicles for increasing pollution in urban areas but is the city pollution mainly because of this? If so, then what is the check initiated by our governments under a law that all vehicles must have a BS4 standard and must get the vehicles checked from time to time and obtain pollution free certificates? This certificate was to be displayed in the front panel. Is it being done? Do the pollution free certificate providers have a genuine gadget to check the exhausts? Some more pollution conscious countries have started implementing a higher standard for their vehicles’ exhaust. In Bharat such a standard is called BS6 and is yet being considered. Why has it not been implemented? The density of vehicular traffic is much more in other developed nations, but they do not face this problem due to vehicles. Therefore, vehicular traffic is not the main culprit for the extremely polluted air in the NCR. There are many more to be blamed. First, it is very much the pampered farmers who practice ‘Parali’ burning. Mainly because of the paddy crop. About 40-50 years ago the farmers of Punjab /Haryana never indulged in this practice. Because they did not consider Rice as a lucrative cash crop. We did not have any smog in this region of Northwest Bharat. Now because of many varieties and especially with the demand for Bharatiye Basmati becoming a rage in Arabian and European countries, our farmers have started growing it in abundance. Some other alternatives must be found to dispose of or use these rice husks.
Then there is the unchecked habit of burning dry leaves and garbage mostly by our sanitary and garden workers. Even though the Delhi government has a law to punish such offences with fine and jail, it is the implementation that is lacking. We now also have an increasing rage and a fashion to celebrate with crackers, polluting not only the air but also creating noise pollution. Even though there are hundreds of deaths of cracker makers annually our governments have no desire to ban or control this unsocial practice. Perhaps some of our leaders own these firecracker factories.
We may also proceed with more urgency to replace the use of petroleum products in transport and industries with other non-polluting fuels or energy. These petroleum products have only brought the world to the era of polluted environment and ambience of our planet. It has also given rise to bully heads of nations and financed the evil of terrorism all over the world.
