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| Intensely suspicious of the
government's intentions and hoping to build public pressure for clean air, Centre for
Science and Environment director Sunita Narain tells Chandrika Mago that the problem with
the Mashelkar committee's report on a national auto-fuel policy is that it proposes weak
norms and does not hold the government accountable even for these: Do you agree with the committee's basic recommendation on multi-fuel options, with emission standards as the key? It's a perfectly logical statement at face value - and completely infantile. Emission norms need to be very stringent, with a road-map to ensure clean air - that has to be the target. We have a large number of vehicles already and emission norms were introduced so late (1999-2000) that less than 18 per cent of the vehicles in Delhi, for example, are Euro I Or II Compliant. We have no policy for getting rid of old vehicles. Therefore the need to leapfrog - and phase in new (clean) vehicles as soon as possible. Nor can we have policies for metros alone. We have to define the country's hotspots, have stricter standards for these, identify the key pollutants, such as sulphur in diesel, and work to bring these down. Data shows 17 of 31 cities are critically polluted, four more than Delhi. Delhi itself has a major pollution problem. It is getting 500 ppm-sulphur diesel, this is supposed to come down to 350 ppm by 2005; the Mashelkar committee has nothing to offer thereafter. We had suggested 50 ppm-sulphur diesel, with particulate traps, by 2004 in the hotspots. This would have given us vehicles as clean as the compressed natural gas (CNG) vehicle. The Mashelkar committee proposes weak fuel norms which will not give us clean air. We are not opposed to more than one fuel, we just want clean fuel. The equivalent to CNG is Euro IV diesel (50 ppm), liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) or ethanol. In any case, do you think the government will do anything if there is no diktat? We have a spineless, weak-kneed state. The committee has taught us classroom logic but not extended it to the full picture. Wherever emission norms are the basis of policy, there are stringent penalties for governments which don't meet these. For instance, the US Clean Air law. If they would like us to be so perfectly rational, then the committee should have laid down the principles for standards which make the government accountable. Where are the accountability norms? They could at least have recommended that one of the ministers - Union or Delhi be put behind bars for breaching their own law on standards. There has been criticism that the impact of a national policy is being viewed just in the context of Delhi. Is that our fault? CNG was top-most in the petroleum minister's mind. He was so desperate to sabotage CNG he used the entire report to scuttle it. If the focus is CNG and Delhi, it's because of the lack of subtlety on the part of the anti-CNG lobby. The report would, otherwise, have been just another report. The problem is with the government's intentions, the attempt by a lobby to use or misuse the report. The first people to come out in its support were the bus operators; it has become Mr Khurana's bed-time reading. Whether it was the intention of the committee or not, it played into the hands of these people. I think the committee members are basically technocrats who have never been part of a public debate before. They probably never realised it was such an emotional issue, they never expected it. It's as if bus operators run the government. We have fought for two years to get things done. Each time, they come up with new tactics to destroy the court order. If the same energy had gone into implementing the order, we would have had a city which could be a model for the world. CNG is difficult to implement but if implemented well, it is the best option. But the disinformation campaign is incredible. Unless there is SC pressure, nothing will happen. What about assertions that there just isn't enough CNG? Take the Hazira-Bijapur-Jagdish-put (HBJ) pipeline and the gas meant for north India. We calculated that the gas needed for buses, auto-rickshaws, taxis and a fourth of the private vehicles in Delhi would be five per cent of the daily gas allocation. Is that a lot? Do you put a value to public health or not? The question in Delhi is not availability but allocation. Till a week ago, there had been no additional allocation to account for public trans-port in Delhi. CNG cannot be an option for every city. In Chennai, LPG would be a better option - nothing is happening there because there is no court order. What about the implementation issues on CNG? There are major issues. One, safe-ty We brought in top experts last year because we were concerned about the details. There were major concerns with the technology of new and converted buses; they sug-gested each bus be inspected be-fore it went on to the road. We reccqded our concerns with the sur-face transport ministry, there has been a notification (in December) on safety standards but they say it will take six months to enact it. Can you afford to wait? The second point is conversion. We wanted all buses to meet Euro, II norms generally, and Euro IV norms for particulates. Eventually, they said converted buses should meet Euro I norms and new buses, Euro IL Essentially, we should have had a framework in place on safety, bus conversion is-sues, inspection and liability systems. This didn't happen. Some systems have come, reluctantly. There is no political will and no bureaucratic drive. The might of vested interests is much stronger than the will of a few other people. How do you react to suggestions that all the criticism is coming from just one organisation? I am glad our organisation has a voice. We think the committee's roadmap is very poor, and there we are speaking for the whole country. And we are also speaking for Delhi, where we live. We are absolutely delighted that people are listening to us. What is your strategy now? One, build up a national coalition, the clean air campaign has to go beyond Delhi. We would like to see other groups going to court in each state; ideally, have a court case in every city, build up public pressure. Two, the effort in Delhi will not stop. We don't expect the court to waver. Our suggestion is that instead of stopping buses from plying, impose a Rs 40,000 a month tax on every diesel bus till it converts and use the money to create a fund to subsidise the purchase of new CNG buses. We will keep the pressure on. |
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