Coordination Between Agencies Integral For Curbing Pollution: Dr DK Aggarwal, Ex-Member, NGT

At the Enviro-Health Conference 2017, organized by Indraprastha Vigyan Bharati at Prithvi Bhawan, Ministry of Earth Sciences, there was a session called Total Resolution: 21 Agenda Points, where different aspects of air pollution and the future agenda to air-pollution were discussed by eminent panellists.

Professor Mukesh Khare (Civil Engineer, IIT D), the moderator of the session, started the discussion by talking about the four dimensions of the Agenda 21 which are “Socio-economic dimension, conservation and management of resources, strengthening of major groups, and implementation of agenda”. “Lancet Report has given us the horrible report about the quality of ambient and indoor pollution and its effect on health. The Economic aspect is very important, as health impact will cause economic losses, so a cost-benefit analysis can be done. Conservation of resources is also important for sustainable living”, said Khare. He also added, “Major groups such as academicians, scientists, administrators and grass-root NGOs should be strengthened. National Plans have to be made into policies, which have to be converted into national processes People need to understand the difference between emission and concentration, and media reporting should be done responsibly.”

An eminent journalist from Times of India, Durgesh Nanda said, “Most of the work done by the government is a cosmetic job, and it is not a continued long-term plan.  Just talking about it and data generation will not help, we need a wholesome approach towards curbing pollution.” He also added, “Knee-jerk reactions will not help, there has to be wholesome, holistic approach towards solving such issues.”

“Each of the neighbouring states of Delhi came along with their online monitoring data and said they are not responsible for the pollution of Delhi”, said Dr DK Aggarwal, ex-member of the National Green Tribunal, speaking about the crop-burning issue which causes pollutions. He also added, “ the Second issue was that there was a duplication of agencies. There is Ministry of Agriculture working on stubble burning, MoEF for Air quality, so there was no coordination. Coordination between different agencies is integral for efficient implementation. Owning the responsibility is totally lacking.” He went on to add, “To our utter shock, there are no norms for diesel locomotives in our country. In our country, most of the vehicles are overloaded. In the northern hilly regions, the quantum of exhaust is unbearable, it’s totally black in colour.” Continuing about the stubble burning issue, he said, “The most important issue when it comes to stubble-burning is that why farmers adopted this practice. The real reason they are practising it is labour shortage as the harvest season coincides with the festival season. The second important reason is that there is a very small gap between sowing of rabi crop and harvest of Kharif crops.”

Professor Mukesh Sharma (Civil Engineer, IIT K) spoke about the importance of collaboration, saying, “What happens is that when I am working on a certain area, I am very myopic about it. It's important to have these larger discussions to get everyone’s perspective on these important issues which require everyone’s attention.” He also added, “Crop-burning issue is an issue which comes up only during October, November. It should be talked about throughout the year.”

The conference ended with the 21 point agenda being read out by Sudhir Mishra, Founder and Managing Partner, Trust Legal which were learnings and future strategies for combatting air-pollution, followed by an environmental pledge taken by the participants and speakers at the conference.

Anurit Kanti

BW Reporters The author is correspondent at BW Businessworld, he has a keen interest in sustainability and environmental economics