By Justice Markandey Katju
These days air pollution levels are very high in Delhi and
the neighbouring regions, 10 times the safety level, and the media is full of
this alarming news.
A major cause of air pollution is crop stubble burning in Punjab, Haryana, and western UP
Polluting vehicles is said to be another cause of air
pollution
The Indian Supreme Court has expressed its displeasure at this state of affairs, but what more could it do ? For it to direct stopping air pollution would be like King Canute telling the waves to go back.
I am afraid this problem cannot be solved in the near
future, and will get worse.
There are three reasons for this :
(1) The central and state
governments are not seriously interested in solving it, since their
focus is only on winning elections. When most people in India go to vote they
forget poverty, unemployment, malnutrition, lack of healthcare or air or water
pollution, and only have caste and religion of the candidate ( or the
caste/religion which his party claims to represent ) in their minds. The political leaders know
this, so air pollution is very low in their priorities.
(2) Stubble burning is a low-cost, less time-consuming,
method for farmers to dispose off their stubble. So they will not resort to
costly alternatives (as mentioned below) :
(3) People will not give up using polluting vehicles, and
measures to stop this (like the odd-even scheme) will only be another source
of corruption in the police, and a vote loser in elections.
This is why I am pessimistic.
(Justice Katju is a retired
judge of the Supreme Court of India. These are his personal views.)
