Lip service

Lip service

The Govts are making tall claims without taking into account the ground reality.

Ahead of the scheduled hearing in the Supreme Court later today in the matter of toxic smog enveloping the Delhi-NCR, which comes soon after the apex court came down heavily on the Centre and the Delhi Governments for their lax and callous attitude in handling the health emergency, there are a few points worth a relook. To begin with, as per the Centre’s own admission, stubble burning accounts for only four per cent of Delhi’s air pollution in winters and seven per cent in summers. So why was this bogy raised pertaining to the upward spiral in pollution levels in Delhi and nearby States of Punjab and Rajasthan? Was it simply because these States are ruled by the Opposition parties, or was it a ruse to direct the suffering people’s ire towards the farming community that has been at loggerheads with the Centre’s three “flawed” and “biased” farm laws, and ‘fix’ it? Any which way, the Centre’s bluff has been called. Now, the role of the biggest stakeholder in the matter who has been making a lot of empty noise while being in the looking-busy-doing-nothing mode, the Kejriwal-led Delhi Government, has also been exposed as sham.

The city Government had told the top court that it is ready to take steps such as “complete lockdown to control local emissions” contributing to Delhi’s polluted air. It conveniently overlooked the harsh truth of lakhs of daily-wagers who are still reeling under the aftereffects of the previous lockdown in which they lost their jobs as well as meagre savings. Instead of advocating such extreme measures, it should have diligently taken simpler steps to ensure that the marketplaces are not taken over by enthusiastic shoppers, their masks hanging loosely around their necks, assiduously hunting for items in the ongoing festive season. The pressure of the footfalls was such that sanitiser in bottles frequently evaporated at various sales departments; there certainly was no longer any worthwhile stress on its usage. The Government shut schools and instructed offices to allow employees to work from home but many workers don’t have that privilege. For the thousands of sales and delivery agents, daily labourers and marketing executives, the stay-at-home advisories hardly mean anything. The Delhi Government is barking up the wrong tree by extending deadwood campaigns such as ‘Red Light On, Gaadi Off’. It’s high time it drew up scientific plans to tame pollution and implemented these to the ‘T’.