Solving Delhi pollution

How to reduce pollution in Delhi NCR

1.       Rivers and lakes and other water bodies have become devoid of its flora and fauna. The fishes in Yamuna river are also dying. This is due to the alarming pollution of air and water in Delhi NCR that has been plaguing the city since more than three years now. The top contributors for this malaise have been construction activity, stubble burning by farmers in Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, vehicular pollution, use of diesel generators coal powered electricity, etc.

2.       Some of my friends and accomplices have shifted to Jaipur or Chandigarh. However, more people are settling down in Delhi NCR than those who are voluntarily churning away from this region to lesser polluted yet nearby cities like Jaipur. Moreover, the people who are moving away from Delhi NCR are typically those who have either recently got possession of their new house in Jaipur or Chandigarh, or those who are not yet keen to uproot their family base which is happily ensconced in Delhi NCR.

3.       We need to label the zones where air quality is perceived to be particularly bad, for which we can make use of crowdsourcing from citizens of Delhi NCR who walk on a regular basis (we can further split by morning, afternoon, evening, night; and cluster by locations that are within a community/highway/other location).

4.       I think the main problem is with the smoke and pollution emanating from the industries around Delhi (Ghaziabad, Meerut, Muzzafarnagar, Manesar, outskirts of Manesar, and other places). However, Delhi being capital gets highlighted. We should monitor pollution of small cities around Delhi. Those cities are in hazardous situation. News only highlights Delhi NCR. The small cities have got no news value. These ‘fringe’ or neighbouring cities have worse pollution, but nobody bothers about them. The residents of those cities need to be educated too about the pollution problem. The citizens should keep a strict check on their vehicles and their tendency to buy a new vehicle after achieving every personal landmark. Also, the people in both Delhi NCR and the crop stubble burning states are illiterate and poor. They do not know even know the problems of pollution and fire. They need to be educated about how China through its political will had solved the problem of pollution in its country.

5.       Another problem is that both the Government and the citizens are not serious. Citizens have been consistently ignoring the warning of Supreme Court of not bursting fire crackers during Diwali season, yet they continue to do so unabatedly. Hence, the citizens need to be collaborate and stop relying on the Government or to clutch to some other straw for finding a comprehensive solution to this problem.

6.       Construction activity related pollution: We should label all the construction related activity (we can cluster by locations that are within a community/highway/other location). We should label and keep a digital record of all the vehicles that puff up dust in a very irresponsible and unaccountable manner, that leads to construction activity. We must penalize the drivers of such vehicles as well as the people who pay for such construction activity.

7.       Crop residue burning: Incentivize initiatives like ‘Happy seeder’. Also, design chemicals that can get mixed with the stubble for useful purposes and thus not requiring the stubble to be burnt. Package the stubble in such a way that it can be sold as ingredient to beer manufacturing companies at a high price. Look at the Youtube video on residue management using Happy Seeder technology: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9EONsoIfxg

8.       Crop residue burning: We should reward the farmers who do not burn their stubbles, and further reward those who do not commit suicide one year after not allowing their stubbles from being burnt. Even better, we should propose to the Central Government to allocate money to the respective State Governments in an equitable manner for the machinery as well as to the farmers. This will facilitate the farmer to pay the EMI (Equated Monthly Installment) against their loans.

9.       Crop residue burning: Incentivize citizens (including farmers) who spend 2 hours each day in library to learn from other countries about the solutions that they had adopted to curb the pollution menace.

10.   Citizen initiative: Incentivize bicycle riding (say with rented bicycles) and walking on trails.

11.   Citizen initiative: Incentivize those who buy fitness clothing from e-commerce websites. Doing so would inculcate fitness attitude as well as digital payment.

12.   Citizen initiative: Incentivize car-pooling during odd hours.

13.   Increase the parking fees of SUVs or high and new vehicles.

14.   Nowadays, highways are expanding in Gurgaon and other parts of Delhi NCR. This is causing the vegetation (trees) to be cut or shifted to other nearby location. Can we prepare an optimization algorithm that can recommend the most optimal location where the vegetation should be shifted in lieu of highways being created or expanded?

15.   Citizen initiative: Incentivize those who do not order from Swiggy or other e-commerce companies in small lots.

16.   Accident prevention/prediction: Everyone should be cognizant of the benefits of having a clean and cluttered mind before hitting the road. We al know that a rash decision taken on the road can lead to severe accident.

17.   Accident prevention/prediction: Encourage people to drive their vehicles at optimal speed of say 50 to 65 kilometres per hour, which will be subject to penalizing them if they overtake from left side of the road just to maintain their optimal speed.

18.   Accident prevention/prediction: Vehicles (cars, buses, trucks) need to comply with certain safety norms. For instance, they should be automatically disallowed from opening any door of their vehicle in the middle of a road, which can save a motorbike driver behind them from meeting with a severe accident.

19.   Accident prevention/prediction:  Label all the instances with root causes of when there are three or more vehicles that have collided and that has resulted in other vehicles to slow down or in a mob to assemble. Such accidents can also contribute to pollution because of slow pace of vehicles.

20.   Odd-even scheme by Chief Minister of Delhi is a good initiative. This is because the minds of drivers today have become so corrupt that all the citizens need someone who can control our minds.

21.   Accident prevention/prediction: Equitable spread or distribution of traffic signals should be there in order to avoid accidents.

22.   Accident prevention/prediction: Penalize two-wheeler drivers from overtaking from left when they have immediately taken a highway exit.

23.   Accident prevention/prediction and Driver psychology: Record how someone reacts upon getting more than one challan due to over-speeding on the same road and especially when the speed limit is quite low.

24.   Accident prevention/prediction and Driver psychology: People get somewhat defeated from psychological point of view when they know that their long journey is coming to an end and when they see that they are just four miles away from their home. They want to speed to their destination, resulting in challan. Study the behavior of such drivers from the next time they hit the road.