ABSTRACT
There has been much ado to address the issue of Delhi’s air being toxic for consumption. With Delhi constantly ranking among the top four most polluted cities in the world, the pressure on the governments to show visible result becomes increasingly more. This haste then results in policies that aim more to mitigate the pressure and not always to solve the issue at hand. Along this line, it is visible that the policies to tackle this challenge have ranged from regulating vehicular pollution by odd-even rule for personal vehicle usage or shifting to less polluting fuels by encouraging the use of CNG vehicles, using financial disincentives such as a green cess on commercial vehicles entering the capital region, a ban on burning stubble in the neighboring states of Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Punjab, Rajasthan and Haryana and similar others. A preliminary examination will reveal that much emphasis had been laid on vehicular pollution and to some extent on stubble burning in the neighboring states. However, a detailed examination reveals that these policies seem to emphasize a monocausal understanding of the sources of Delhi’s air pollution.
The present chapter discusses the nature of air pollution in India’s National Capital Region (NCR)/National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi by analyzing the policy responses and how these policies have been effective (or not as the case may be). In doing so, the intention is to probe how the concept of air pollution itself is framed and analyzing such framing by juxtaposing it against the concept of risk. The emphasis here is on reflecting upon the ways policies are currently formed; consequently, the policy alternatives. In doing so, the emphasis is on the politics of solution-framing that is engaged upon as a result of this process, which can be argued to be monocausal or linear at best and often end up having unintended consequences vis-à-vis the more underprivileged sections Furthermore, the chapter also highlights that by focusing on a solution-oriented approach, which itself is the fruit of a specific form of agenda, the agenda-setting groups tend to take over the framing of the problem itself and hence exert a tremendous amount of influence over the entire process of policy framing.
The chapter concludes by arguing that the policies to tackle the issue at hand must understand the problem of Delhi from a wider perspective. Furthermore, it is posited that accounting for non-local factors would aid in achieving this wider perspective, contingent on viewing human practices along with natural factors as forming part of a coherent narrative that is in turn centred around a regional approach.
