Better governance across India is a must for our Viksit Bharat goal to be achieved by 2047

Stage 3 was switched on from 11 November, off on 26 November, on again on 13 December morning and then further ramped up by the evening of the same day to stage 4.

After 10 days, when air quality improved from ‘very severe’ to ‘poor’ on 24 December, stage 4 was switched off despite forecasts that air quality was expected to worsen (which did happen).

Grap stages have to be invoked in an anticipatory manner based on projected changes in air quality and then held steady for a while, rather than as jerky short-term responses to readings in the immediate past. Vehicular and other measures have to build up to make a discernible impact.

Under stage 4, all construction activity stops, as do load-bearing trucks except for essential commodities, thus squeezing supplies to wholesale and retail markets. School education goes into hybrid mode except for class 12. Schools for children up to class 5 are closed. Young children cannot be left alone at home.

Working parents have an option to work from home since both private and government institutions were required to reduce in- person attendance to 50%.

But as a Delhi order, it could not be imposed on central government institutions, while hospitals and other emergency services do not have a virtual-work option even under Grap 4.

Improving air quality is not an ornamental add-on to the quality of life. It is critically necessary to chart a rational path towards the country’s growth ambitions.

Uncurbed pollution is severely destructive of the health and productivity of the population. But if pollution can be curbed only by stopping the movement of goods and people and construction activity, growth suffers.

We need to cut pollution structurally and not through Grap interventions, and for that we require consistency in policy across spheres. Delhi is by no means the only city in India with an air quality problem.

This is a nationwide affliction with cross-sectional variations, much as within Delhi, where the air quality index (AQI) in industrial suburbs like Jahangirpuri goes off the charts (recording instruments are calibrated only up to an AQI of 500). Grap 4 kicks in when the AQI cross 450.

That was the cross-sectional average level reached in Delhi when Grap 4 was invoked.

Delhi’s December air pollution is fuelled by more than the post-harvest crop stubble burning of October-November. There are basic structural issues at play like coal-based electricity generation, other industrial pollution, biomass burning for heat in the cold weather and, most of all, vehicular emissions.

To curb vehicular pollution, demand for private vehicles should not be encouraged, right? On 3 September, GST rates were cut across the board.

Many of the cuts were most welcome. Some were not so welcome because of the foreseeable impact on vehicular pollution, such as the cut from 28% to 18% on four-wheeled vehicles less than 4 metres in length.

On the face of it, this was a move designed to boost consumer demand for less emission-intensive vehicles among aspirants to car ownership further down the income scale. But pollution can rise with more cars on the road, even if each vehicle is less polluting.

Further, the rate cut has resulted in a sharp rise in demand not so much for small cars as for sport-utility vehicles (SUVs) of length less than 4 metres, which are heavier and more emission-intensive than ordinary cars.

There needs to be a formal provision for inter-ministerial discussion on all policy measures that impinge on the jurisdiction of ministries other than the originating ministry. This is a governance imperative.

Another governance imperative is for regulatory agencies to actually perform the regulation they are set up to do.

In the first week of December, India’s dominant airline IndiGo cancelled a large number of flights—as many as 1,000 on the single worst day. The major cause was the revised work scheduling for pilots mandated by the country’s aviation regulator, calling for more pilots to run scheduled flights.

Regulation in India is generally well intended. But regulations become effective only when compliance is supervised. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has, in addition to a department of banking regulation, an independent department handling banking supervision, each reporting to a separate deputy governor.

Regulation is not a matter of issuing commands from on high. There has to be a systematic structure in place for follow-up. In the airline case, there ought to have been an agreed timetable with the regulator for extra pilot hires, along with supervisory checks on whether that time- table was being adhered to.

The toxicity of Delhi’s air after that initial flight disruption combined with foggy conditions caused further flight cancellations and delays. These disruptions extended well beyond air travel—to rail and road movement of passengers and cargo.

With transportation, health and education disruptions, are we doing enough to stave off the predictable ones and put in place a coping strategy for unpredictable ones to keep our growth dreams alive?