This document discusses the poor environmental conditions and lack of proper infrastructure in Delhi, India. It notes issues like broken sidewalks, overflowing sewage lines, lack of waste management, pollution from vehicles and industry, and an extremely polluted Yamuna River. It then provides several recommendations to help address Delhi's environmental problems, including converting government vehicles to CNG, establishing no-vehicle zones, increasing parking fees, enforcing emissions tests, relocating repair shops, and powering infrastructure with solar. The goal is to take short-term action that leads to long-term sustainability improvements in India's capital city.

1. Cleaning Delhi’s Air: Mission Possible
Shantanu Basu
India’s National Capital Region must rank somewhere at the bottom of the global list of least
livable cities. Neither does its sewage system work, nor is any effort made to cut down the 400%
wasted water. Its pavements are broken or slovenly laid; the edges of the sidewalks invariably
broken and huge car-holes dot nearly all major arterial roads. There are huge stretches of access
paths between buildings and roads that remain the Lord’s creation or have been converted to
public conveniences, the refuge of abandoned construction materials, unwanted old cars and
bikes and instant roadside parking lots. Delhi’s 80000 municipal sanitation workers are
erratically paid and when they are paid, there is precious little supervision over them.
Delhi’s building boom of the pre-2009 era has left scars in the shape of broken sidewalks and
damaged roads. Even now, builders cock a snook at the law as they stack construction materials
on roadsides while the road itself is the mixing ground for mortar and passage of heavily
overladen lorries on roads that were built for smaller vehicles. Govt. and private utility
contractors dig up roads even as they are freshly macadamized and leave debris there without
any repairs. This is when the contract’s proviso to cover cost of damages to roads is included in
payables to such contractors. There is no concept of underground cable and electricity drains.
Developers, including CPSUs, seldom cover trucks of sand, etc. that they carry to building sites
or rubble that they carry away.
Never are trees on public land trimmed for greater foliage at a lower height, nor is wild growth, a
given, along and on sidewalks, ever removed. Except for British-planted fruit trees in the
Lutyens’ zone, and Chankyapuri, Delhi has mostly wild and deformed neem and banyan trees
that are often diseased, have sparse foliage and serve their only purpose of making Delhi’s streets
dangerous to walk since they obscure Delhi’s new LED street lights. Public parks are mostly in
derelict state, except for few that local residents have pooled their money and effort into. Delhi’s
drinking water is hardly potable; treated water is mixed with unfiltered bore well water (with a
generous dollop of chlorine powered thrown into tanks and mobile tankers) and supplied to
households whose underground reservoirs become breeding grounds for sand and worms to
breed.
In most parts sewage and potable water lines run parallel within a few inches of each other.
Sewage pipes are of 1950s and 1960s vintage and cannot take the pressure of 4-5 apartments on
a land plot where there were one or two previously. Garbage disposal is limited to large
municipal vats that are cleaned once a day while garbage lies in the open for the better part of the
day. There are no separate arrangements to dispose of huge amounts of garden waste that must
find its way into already overflowing landfills.
Delhi’s fresh food markets and huge choice of eateries have virtually no sewage evacuation
system even as many generate animal waste as well. Unauthorized businesses operate out of
residential premises where waste from basement kitchens, washrooms and pantries seep into
potable water lines and are a main cause for collapsing roads even in Lutyens’ Delhi. Plastic
bags are found in large numbers in all municipal sewage drains in the poshest of localities in
Delhi. Those residents that the Delhi Jal Board and municipalities deem to be lesser mortals must
live and wade to work through the sewage in their colonies.

2. Disposal of hazardous substances, notably those from the capital’s thousands of medical
institutions is another grey area. No one seems to know where such wastes are dumped. Not just
that, industrial solid waste emanating from Delhi’s major industrial clusters are often burnt or
simply dumped alongside already severely broken roads. On a recent visit to such an industrial
cluster on Mathura Road, I held a kerchief tightly to my nose while my eyes burnt. A two-hour
wait in that area and my shirt looked like it hadn’t been washed after over a month of continuous
use while the towel merited throwing into the trash bin after wiping my face on it. A racking
cough that lasted over two weeks was a long-term takeaway.
The less that is said of Delhi’s unruly traffic, the better it is. The lane I live in South Delhi
‘boasts’ of about 65 cars/SUVs (I have only a budget car) spread over about 35 households,
about half of whom are superannuated people with just one car. Most houses have no parking
within the premises. The end result is the owners of these vehicles jostle for parking space in the
evening in a lane that can accommodate no more than 30 cars on both sides. How would
municipal sanitation workers even clean such areas? Commercial and office areas like Nehru
Place have makeshift parking lots with several thousand cars even blocking access to filthy and
overflowing public conveniences. Open spaces have been taken over by hundreds of street
vendors that proudly display a High Court stay order on their removal dated sometime in 2010-
11. The buildings in Nehru Place generate giant amounts of waste every day; the internal roads
are illusory or eternally dug up for ages, much of them waterlogged. Waste bins are seldom
visible and all access roads resemble a mini-sea after a light shower. I suppose the position in
other commercial centers like Rajindra Place is no better. Needless to add, these areas can never
be cleaned.
Government offices in Delhi are no less major polluters. With steady, but mostly unproductive,
accretion in the numbers of secretarial babus, government buildings are the next largest slums
and generators of waste. In North Block on Raisina Hill, a single room has been renumbered as
1A-F to accommodate up to 15-25 personnel more. Udyog, Krishi, Rail, Shastri, Nirman and
many other bhavans fare no better. Even after PMO issued a circular to clean these premises in
2014, old records and undisposed junked staff vehicles were hurriedly shifted beyond public
view. The same holds true of innumerable giant malls and cineplexes that have come up in Delhi
in the last decade. Delhi’s vast slum and homeless population with street side defecation, waste
dumping, cooking and living only multiplies the woes.
Delhi boasts of India’s largest fleet of motor vehicles. It also has urban India’s largest network of
roads. With a land area of about 1500 sq. km, the city has 86 lakh motor vehicles, i.e. 5733
vehicles per sq. km. Of these, more than half are two and three-wheeled ones. To support these,
there are innumerable POL and service stations, new and used vehicle and accessory dealerships,
roadside repair garages, roadside eateries that provide food to workers, tobacco outlets, etc.
Many operate on sidewalks or by taking up a whole lane of the road in front of these premises.
Notwithstanding a large number of CWG flyovers, any speed more than at second gear is
unfathomable.
Public transport is limited to the Delhi Metro running along major arteries with CNG-powered
feeder buses in short supply. The city has a giant auto-rickshaw population both for passengers
and for carrying loads. The CWG buses of the DTC never get a wash, least of all even basic
repairs to keep them running, even presentable. The new lines of the DMRC are under
construction for the last 2-3 years in South Delhi but progress appears tardy. The city also has a
large population of diesel-run private cars that are hired, even by govt. departments, although

3. private vehicles cannot, by law, be hired out for commercial purposes. Auto-rickshaws are often
unwilling to travel long distances, particularly in the afternoon, for their daily supply of CNG
runs low by then. With sanitation workers, auto and taxi drivers, etc. forming the backbone of the
AAP govt.’s vote bank, complaints are seldom acted upon; instead a hiding for the passenger is
more likely.
Most of Delhi’s flyovers have little or no water drainage and have city bus stops or informal
pedestrian crossings at either end. Traffic lights are often out of order and have no scientific
timing. Public display timers on the bulk of these lights do not function, prompting a motorist to
keep his/her vehicle’s engine running at idle. Pollution under Control Certificates could be
obtained without taking a vehicle to the testing center, for a small premium. There is hardly any
random surprise checking of PUC certificates and carbon emissions of motor vehicles. While the
bulk of Delhi’s public transport vehicles run on CNG, there is school of scientific thought that
decries CNG for invisible emissions that are far more dangerous for human health than fossil
fuel-run vehicles.
The recipient of the gargantuan amounts of waste is Delhi’s dying Yamuna River. On a recent
visit to this river in a boat to immerse my late father’s ashes, I was forced to hold a kerchief to
my nose. I had never seen such shade of black. There were human bones littered along the
burning Nigambodh ghat, dhobis washed their clothes and men and boys dived in that water for
gold shavings and jewelry from dead bodies. A haze and unbearable stench from the CNG
furnaces and open fire cremations hung heavy for several sq. km. Yet Nigambodh Ghat is on
Delhi’s periphery. The crematorium at Lodhi Road is far worse and its haze spreads over
Lutyens’ Delhi too.
India’s national capital is entirely unfit to bear its sobriquet, indeed even unworthy of human
habitation beyond its airport and Raisina Hill. Delhi is India’s most deserving case for
rehabilitation, even if that must be done at gunpoint by the courts and governments. Success here
could be replicated in other urban areas. While GNCTD certainly has a major role to play in
cleaning up Delhi, the Govt. of India’s long-term role in sustaining it cannot remain understated.
Delhi needs short-term control measures to dovetail into long-term objectives. Scoring brownie
points over each other in a sordid political game has already discredited both partners. Now that
India has had modest success in the Paris talks, it must stand up and show it means clean-up
business. And such clean-up must necessarily start from its National Capital.

4. Although I am no expert on urban planning, disaster mitigation or environmental pollution, yet
as a lifelong suffering resident of Delhi, I have put together a few random short-term suggestions
in the succeeding paragraphs. Long-term solutions are subject of a separate future article.
Government-owned or hired staff vehicles account for an inordinately large number of mostly
four-wheeled and higher vehicles. For a start, all govt.-owned diesel vehicles should be
condemned or converted to CNG by Mar 31, 2015. An executive order banning hiring of private
passenger vehicles, petrol, diesel or CNG, as hired taxis for use by governments and their
agencies must be issued by MoEF immediately. Govt. orders that provide free transport to
certain categories of officers (who often end up with 2-3 vehicles each, including hired cars
extracted from PSUs) must be rescinded and at least two senior officers are pooled in a single
car. Orders of GNCTD that allow private use of official vehicles for a laughable monthly
payment must be similarly rescinded. The recommendations of the 7th Central Pay Commission,
as and when accepted, could do away with the transportation allowance for babus (except the
physically challenged) and devote this saving to fund chartered buses. The system of point-to-
point air-conditioned chartered buses ought to be reintroduced and institutionalized. If an
example were to be set, Ministers and legislators ought to be similarly pooled, at least for their
journeys between home and office. Even for these pooled vehicles, a monthly mileage limit must
be laid down, viz. not more than 2000 km/month, all trips inclusive. Likewise, corporates and
other institutions could be prevailed upon, by law, to introduce similar arrangements.
The area from India Gate to Rashtrapati Bhavan, from Akbar Road to Parliament Library and the
inner circle of Connaught Place could be converted into a no-motor vehicle zone on a pilot basis.
Instead battery-operated extended chassis golf carts (instead of rickety and unstable e-rickshaws)
operated on commercial basis could take over for a start. Battery-operated shuttle minibuses
between railway/DMRC stations and major commercial/office centers on commercial tariff basis
should be contemplated. Since battery-powered vehicles would require quick charging points at
regular intervals, BSES/NDMC overhead power lines to create charging points for battery-
operated vehicles on lamp posts could be operated as attender-free vending machines.
Simultaneously, govts. must reduce duties, taxes and imposts on hybrid and battery operated
vehicles by 50-60% and provide a suitable tax rebate for users for their O&M expenses.
Off-grid home solar-energy solutions in Delhi need to be subsidized by at least 50% in the first
decade top reduce the city’s dependence on fossil fuel-based energy plants in its vicinity. For
institutional users, interest subsidy of 7-9% on commercial borrowing may be contemplated, in
addition to a green rebate on corporate tax. MCD’s garbage collection vats could be equipped
with integrated in situ incinerators with pollution-scrubbing equipment and tall smokestacks.
Battery-operated school buses could be similarly subsidized. Street and traffic lights could be run
on solar energy with BSES power as back-up. School, university and government buildings
could be solar-powered since they often have ample roof tops. Delhi’s international airport that
has huge unutilized area could set up solar farms and power the airport’s large energy
requirement. Similarly, parking lots at Delhi’s railway stations could be partly covered with solar
power for the stations and also attract a larger parking premium for this virtue. Outsourcing all
these activities would also create huge O&M employment.
Parking charges in all NDMC and MCD lots should be raised to Rs. 75 for 4-wheelers for the
first hour and Rs. 50 for each subsequent hour, subject to a maximum of Rs. 425/day, Rs. 200 for
2-wheelers. Alternately, why not have a monthly parking pass; say for Rs. 7500/4000 per month,
valid in all lots across Delhi with a windshield-mounted machine-readable sticker? There is also

5. a strong case for imposing a London-like CBD charge of say Rs. 3000/car/month via automated
toll collection gates in the radial roads converging on all major commercial/office areas.
Likewise, an entry charge on light private and commercial passenger vehicles visiting Delhi, say
for a monthly sticker charge of Rs. 5000/car/month or Rs. 500/day ought to be contemplated and
tourist buses charged Rs. 3000-5000/entry.
Enforcement of existing laws and regulations is a given. GNCTD ought to speed up the ongoing
process of connecting all PUC centers to a central server and further to CCTV cameras installed
on traffic light posts to check, on real time basis, the validity of PUC certificates issued and
current emissions. All open trucks carrying building materials, rubble, etc. must be covered with
tarpaulin with exemplary fines for violations and builders frequently inspected for violating
norms with fines ranging from Rs. 100-250/sq. ft. of total sanctioned covered area, on each
occasion. The industrial clusters in Delhi need to be closely inspected for environmental
violations and fines provided under EPA Rules enhanced manifold. MoEF must realize that it is
only a facilitator, for environmental preservation is primarily a State subject, although it’s new
opulent premises in New Delhi’s Jor Bagh conveys an impression to the contrary. All open
trucks carrying building materials, rubble, garbage, etc. must be covered with tarpaulin with
exemplary fines for violations, say Rs. 5000 on each occasion. The industrial clusters in Delhi
need to be closely inspected for environmental violations and fines provided under EPA Rules
enhanced manifold. All residential buildings with more than 2 living floors and office/business
buildings could be mandated to provide for integrated incinerators at building plan sanction
stage. Can all unauthorized private car repair garages, automobile service stations, automobile
(new & used) and vehicle accessory dealerships not be relocated to Delhi’s industrial cluster
areas? If tanneries were ejected from Kolkata why not in Delhi too? Likewise, the current system
of a one-time registration of private vehicles needs to be stopped and limited to five years,
renewable for another 5+5 years. At every stage, revised one-time parking and pollution-
compliance fees must be imposed on all owners related to the purchase value, engine size and
mass of the vehicle. These revenues could finance underground parking below large community
parks, shopping complexes and below existing over-ground lots. This however, implies a much
larger force of enforcement personnel, not babus ensconced in plush offices in Jor Bagh!
Going a step further, why can Parliament not enact legislation to stagger working hours in
various categories of establishments all over India? Why not have govt. offices run from
Wednesday-Sunday, schools on Monday-Friday and private establishments on Tuesday-
Saturday? For that matter, why not have two sets of working hours for private establishments
employing lesser or greater than 100 employees, one from 0900-1700 hours, the other from
1100-1900 hours?
Post-7th Central Pay Commission, the municipal bodies and their contractors would be under
tremendous pressure for hiking wages. Obviously, this implies a proportionate increase in
productivity of such personnel so that their actual numbers come down. Municipal sanitation
workers should be equipped with commercially available shoulder-mounted power blowers to
speed up cleaning of streets and sidewalks. They would be backed by mechanical mini-street
mobile cleaning trucks for all residential colonies and larger ones for arteries so that dust is
cleared up immediately. Simultaneously, Delhi PWD and MCD must not only re-pave all broken
roads but also provide RCC between the main road and unpaved area up to the outer walls of
buildings located on either side of the road. In addition, mixing plastic waste in road surfacing
materials would help the dust to remain on the surface (instead of entering crevices and

6. collecting there) make mechanized cleaning more effective and time-saving. The large open
drains like those in Defense Colony, East Delhi and Najafgarh, and all storm water drains ought
to be covered with steel grilles so that animal and plant waste and plastic do not enter and choke
them.
Drastic short-term measures like ‘odd-even’ will, in our patronage-based polity, only cause huge
corruption and irresistible demands for unending exemptions. The economic and social fallout of
such drastic knee-jerk actions is huge. The poor quality of human health in Delhi has a large
negative footprint on the city-state’s economy and public health and allied systems. There are
enough laws to clean our environment for which little legislation is required in the short term.
What are unfortunately missing are vision, accountability and enforcement. Policy response for
new long-term policy must therefore be carefully debated, calibrated and delivered, irrespective
of vote bank politics.
The utter disdain for observance of the law that manifests itself in all walks of governance must
be corrected by raising dedicated enforcement machinery with all policing powers, fast-track
green courts awarding exemplary punishments, appeals lying only to the National Green
Tribunal that ought to be vested with the jurisdiction and powers of a Green Apex Court. The
Hon’ble Chief Justice of India’s laudable public support of control of environmental pollution
deserves the nation’s fullest support for this situation demands nothing short of Draconian
solutions.
The author is a senior public policy analyst and commentator