How China won pollution battle as India allows Delhiites gasping for fresh air ?

PTC News Desk: India and China, two neighboring countries and two different approaches to tackle the pollution. While China won the battle against air pollution, India is allowing national capital's residents to choke to death. The two powerhouses of Asia have been dealing with the pollution menace since decades, while one launched an all out war to save its citizens, other is helplessly watching its people gasping for breathe. 

Poisonous skies, absence of sunlight since two weeks, burning throats, wheezing eyes is what India's capital New Delhi has been witnessing these days.

Each year, around 12,000 people die from air pollution in Delhi, according to a report in The Lancet Planetary Health journal. Millions of others face serious health issues.

The reason the air quality of India and the entire scenario is being compared with China is because the source of the pollution in both the nations is nearly similar. Vehicular emissions, dirty coal-fired power plants, and industrial smoke. In Delhi's case, there's also the smoke from stubble burning in the nearby agricultural states of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan.

What was China's Action Plan?

In 2013, China's once most polluted city Beijing was encountered a massive public outrage over the toxic air that engulfed the city for almost two weeks prompting Pan Shiyi, the billionaire co-founder of SOHO China to initiate a campaign which became a public movement.

The government was listening, and took note.

"We will resolutely declare war against pollution as we declared war against poverty," said Li Keqiang, the Chinese Premier.

China was quick to react and released a national air action plan while setting aside $100 billion for the multi-year mission. China also for the first time started publishing air quality data, Earlier it used to get public by US embassy in Beijing.

It shuttered down 100 factories, upgraded others and implemented strict emission norms.

What lags in Delhi's Measures?

This would be wrong to say that New Delhi has presented to measure, however the efforts are not substantially enough owing to the population and other parameters. 

The actions were taken when Supreme Court intervened into the matter and ordered  Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) to transition its diesel buses into ones running on CNG. The capital also shut down five thermal plants to curtail the menace. More or less the measures taken by the government can only be seen as prevention rather than perpetual.

Every time the city turns into a gas chamber, the immediate action taken is banning certain activities which can only function to a certain extent and cannot be considered a long-term solution with everlasting effects. 

The pollution problem in Delhi would not curtain with merely implementing odd-even scheme or banning construction activities, the problem required a multi-faceted approach keeping in view distinct factors and significant cooperation. 

Delhi and the other cities need a robust and planned public transport system. Though the metro network in Delhi and its periphery has expanded, there is the problem of last-mile connectivity.