Concentrating Political Power Harms the Environment

The politician of today needs to be seen to be taking some action, and many do. The problem, however, has to do with the kind of action that can be taken. Our politicians are failing, not because of lack of desire but because of their inability to access the right advice.  

Let us take Delhi CM Kejriwal’s announcements, for instance, a few days before the pollution ‘season’ the CM announced some measures aimed at reducing pollution. Three of these – an app through which citizens can report pollution hotspots, a war room that can address these hotspots, and environment marshals are actually the same; with components where citizens report hotspots and a war room directs ‘marshals’ to quickly rush and control them. Another one, of odd-even car plying every alternate day, is no solution as it does not address the pollution problem but does reduce traffic. A recently announced smog tower is another such travesty, smog towers will not save the poor and underprivileged or the old and the children from the toxic nature of pollution; instead, they are merely showpieces designed to fool gullible citizens. Pollution masks are better, but they were given out last year as well, and we know most children did not use them for a range of reasons, the primary one being that they did not fit well. Yet another one, you would think cannot be faulted – tree planting; it focuses only on transplanting trees and planting new ones but there is no talk of maintenance, pruning, and focusing on planting native trees (the latter being critical from an ecological and ecosystem perspective). Which leaves us with community Diwali laser show and dust control which requires cleaning of roads. While the Delhi CM wants to show he is doing something, all his ‘solutions’ have one underlying thought - they should be visible. Smog tower, community laser show, pollution masks, odd-even, green app, war room, tree planting, cleaning of roads, etc. If some thought had gone behind them (locality level laser show, dedicated water harvesting for winter cleaning, native trees, block-level tree replacement, tightening of PUC certification rather than odd-even, etc.) then I would still grant the CM some benefit of doubt, but not this. But this is a government more intent on showing rather than doing.

The central government that also controls Delhi’s municipal services through the municipal commissioners has also been amazingly lax. But the difference is that this government is not even intent on showing significant action. Delhi’s garbage management is the dumps with little progress on waste management both on the collection and disposal side. Industrial effluents still largely flow into the Yamuna with no comprehensive plan for taking care of it.  Coal power plants in the vicinity of Delhi continue emitting toxic ash, emission control equipment has not been put in most of them, and all deadlines are breached. Other measures that helped like pushing ahead with EVs, directly subsidizing gas for cooking had other objectives where the environmental benefit was just a by-product. (Admittedly there is that one saving grace though, the government pushed ahead the deadline for BSVI and introduced low sulphur fuels early, but this has played out sometime back.)  

It is sometimes believed that politicians do what they get votes for. I beg to differ. If all politicians worked as per that rule ISRO, IIT, IIM, BARC, DSE, IISs, NDDB, and a host of other institutions would not have existed. Politicians can identify and support actions that do the right thing even if they get no additional votes for it. And so I wonder why does one group of today’s politicians put in a lot of effort to show they are doing something but spend little effort to figure out what they should do well and how? And why does another group of politicians not even bother to show that they are doing something?  

And it is also not about lack of funds. Spending Rs 20 crores for a smog tower when the city’s premier pollution-fighting regulator (DPCC) is short of staff and facilities. Garbage burning plants require very high-temperature incineration but that is not monitored enabling the contracting entities to get away by saving costs at the cost of generating toxic air. Strengthening of monitoring and enforcement within the government is a no-brainer, what good is a government that cannot enforce its own laws?

The more I think about it, it is not lack of desire, or corruption, nor short-sightedness, but a deep need to centralize decision-making. Not just in Delhi, look at every state of India and power is concentrated in a single office. Creating institutions requires decentralization and that is how expertise can be brought in to help contribute to the future. Centralization may have other benefits but it reduces nuances in decision-making, fine-tuning of government actions is more difficult, dependency on bureaucracy with short term career objectives is far more, and access to experts is limited.

Yes, the key factor behind endemic pollution and poor environment outcomes is the tendency of the modern Indian politician to centralize decision-making.