How to suck out Delhi's pollution

Recently Arvind Kejriwal led AAP Government hit the headlines for coming up with a formula to curb the pollution of Delhi. But for VIP, women drivers, two wheelers; public transport vehicles and perhaps some more categories; vehicles having odd and even registration numbers would be able to ply on alternate days on Delhi roads.

This reminds me of headline grabbing stunt of Kejrival in his last stint when AAP came with innovative idea of using dysfunctional DTC buses as night shelter for relatives of patients being treated in AIIMS during winters.

By all means; the current idea is not innovative. I heard of this formula being used by some cities in other parts of world some 20 years back.

Boss Kejrival; there is a saying in Hindi that you cannot quench thirst by licking dew drops.
While this is a noble idea and should be implemented in Delhi; this would not bring any perceivable change to Delhi pollution levels which is choking the Delhiites.

Let’s muse a bit on what other things can be done in Delhi. Perhaps we need to attack the situation on multiple fronts and a number of initiative may bring a cumulative impact which result in a much more livable Delhi

1. Let everyone attempt to move closer to their workplace; so as to reduce daily commute time

This will definitely not be practical for everyone. But maybe; there are many people who may be able to make adjustment. The aim to reduce need to commute on a monthly basis. Lesser is our need to commute; lesser will we exposed to polluted air and lesser will we contribute to pollution by burning our fuel. Companies may allow 1 day work from home every week for non-production units.

2. Use vacuum cleaning vehicles instead of brooms for removing dust from Delhi roads; cement all the open area or apply green patch
Municipality cleaning staff using broom to sweep the dust from onside to the road to other is just a wasteful exercise. The dust only diffuses in the whole air and practically remain there. There is a need to suck them out and dispose appropriately. Along with this; ensure covering all the bare open muddy patches with greenery or cementing them. Further invest in arranging water sprinklers for the roads. This also means arranging lots of non-potable water for sprinkling on the roads.

3. Identify alternative means of transport of goods to avoid trucks entering the city area

I can think of places like Chawdi Bazaar/Old Delhi wholesale markets; Azadpur fruits and vegetable Mandi and other similar places which would need a lot of trucks to supply the merchandise to the markets. How about supplying the goods by train to the nearest railway station and building some aerial cable cars to bridge that last mile connectivity? This needs feasibility study and investment. This can be a great solution to traffic stagnation and pollution.



4. Divert all the inter-state trucks passing through the city by effective bypass roads.
This is self explanatory



5. Install Smog sucking towers and make diamonds out the smog carbon.

These diamonds can be sold to recover the price of setting up the towers.
http://www.takepart.com/article/2015/07/28/smog-sucking-tower-turns-air-pollution-into-diamonds

Alternatively, we can make fuel out of the CO2 in the air.
http://www.fastcoexist.com/3051240/these-enormous-fans-suck-co2-out-of-the-air-and-turn-it-into-fuel

These initiatives must be costly. Why cannot Mr Narendra Modi/Kejriwal invite these innovators under “Make in India” campaign? What is the price of life of all the Delhi citizens? How much of it can our industrialists happily contribute under their CSR schemes? How much of it our citizens would be happy to contribute towards for their own health and that of their dear ones?


6. Replace all the coal fired power stations in Delhi
In a phased manner, slowly replace coal fired stations like NTPC badarpur etc. with solar and wind power stations. Start a movement in Delhi to let all people have solar panels installed on their roof tops and generate as much electricity from cleaner source as possible to meet their daily consumption. If they are able to generate more; let them have the option of sending the unused electricity to the grid and gain credit points from electricity suppliers.

We should have a target of couple of years to bring down the pollution level consistently by focussed effort on multiple fronts and track our progress on a monthly basis. 

White Dwarf Arvind Kejriwal

Finally the much awaited results of Indian General Elections are out. The agility of world’s largest democracy has taken the world by awe. India shows the world how to decide the fate of a nation in most peaceful and perhaps most constructive way.

While the elections have sprung many surprises; none compares the fate of the newly formed AAP (Aam Admit Party) and its founder Mr. Arvind Kejriwal. To many, he was the youngest star born on the horizons of Indian Politics. His rise was unconventional and for a good time he gave all those veteran seasoned politicians a good run for their money. His guerilla warfare antics kept all on their toes.

The pinnacle of his popularity and success was the point where AAP made its debut in Delhi Assembly elections. Kejriwal humbled the Goliath in Congress and BJP to claim the top seat in Delhi Elections.

Kejriwal had two choices here.

Choice 1:
Toil as Delhi Chief Minister and attempt to fulfill all the utopian promises made to win the elections. Grow from strength to strength. Show sincerity in accomplishing the claims made in the state elections manifesto. At the same time; grow organically as a national party; perhaps focus on PHD (Punjab, Haryana, Delhi) in the upcoming National Elections.   

Choice 2:
Takht ya Taboot

Go all out for whole of India. Delhi Chief Minster seat is too small to fulfill the ambitions of Kejriwal. It is not possible to do justice to the seat of Chief Minister in Delhi and follow the national dream. Dump the CM seat and go back to the streets and take all the bigwigs head on. The risk is to lose whatever is at hand and the reward is the top post of the nation.

I am no political pundit or psephologist but what gives me liberty to make my own version of audacious analysis and hindsight is that probability of me being right or wrong is same as of those who are doing this for a living:-  50%.

We all know that Kejriwal led AAP went for Choice 2 and now we all know the consequences of it.
Let’s try to muse a bit on what would have happened if AAP went for the first choice.

Simulation, if AAP went for Choice 1;

Both Congress and BJP would be too happy to keep Kejriwal contained in Delhi region and would have conceded to a number of his eccentric demands. After Delhi results; there was a fear psychosis in BJP and Congress circles about Kejriwal’s ability to churn out unpredictable results in national elections.
Kejriwal could have shown off his moral and character superiority on BJP and Congress and perhaps would have won 20 odd seats in PHD region. There was a clear BJP wave this time. BJP had a set of staunch supporters who were adamant to vote him to power. AAP and Congress divided amongst themselves the votes of people who were anti BJP/Narendra Modi. If AAP had not fielded its candidates from all the constituencies; due to vote consolidation; perhaps UPA could have won 30-40 more seats at national level. In that scenario; BJP would have to seek alliances from other regional parties to form Government.

It is said that behind every successful man there is a woman and behind every unsuccessful man; there are two! Narendra Modi attributes his success to one woman; his mother. Imagine the situation where BJP did not have clear majority and Narendra Modi would have to depend on two women; Mamata Didi and Jayalalitha Amma! NDA might still have gone ahead and claimed the power at centre but it would have been a much humbled and limited in capacity.

I feel very thankful to Kejriwal that he went all out at national level. This allowed BJP to have clear majority. In my opinion; the growth vision of Congress and BJP are more or less the same. It is only the limitation of working under the control of irritant and demanding allies that slows down the progress and materialization of all the progressive projects.
I am sure; NaMo will do a sterling job in taking the growth of Indian nation to a new height. Congress could also have done similar things if they had clear mandate. Also job rotation is good as it helps flow of out of the box ideas that have incubated all this while. So, I expect more from BJP at this point of time.

Coming to the fate of rising star, Arvind Kejriwal; I am tempted to draw an analogy from a branch of Astronomy, Formation of stars. It is said that the new stars like our own sun undergo fusion reaction under the force of gravity where Hydrogen atoms combine to form Helium; releasing tremendous amount of energy in the process. When all the Hydrogen exhausts; under constant gravitational pull; the Helium atoms undergo further fusion to form Carbon atoms and thus goes the formation of heavier elements. This does not go on forever for all the stars!.  The big stars, which are 8 times or more massive to our own Sun explode in a spectacular Supernova. If the mass of the star is similar to our own sun; the most probable fate of the star is to become white dwarf. After all the Hydrogen has converted into Helium; the smaller stars swell into a red giant stage and eventually shed off the outer layers. What remains is the corpse of the star; a dim remnant where no Hydrogen fusion occurs. No fireworks come out of them.

Kejriwal attempted to explode like a Supernova but has shrunk to a white dwarf. He and his Aam Admi Party may remain there for a good long time but I do not expect any spectacular rise of his party again. The novelty of AAP antics has turned into predictability and an all-powerful Modi Sarkar will crush his road side agitations with brutal force if he tries them again. He is also expected to lose much of his red-giant layers of supporters as people have got disillusioned in masses and have their doubts in ability of this man to deliver anything tangible apart from dharnas.

So, I take the liberty to write off Mr. Arvind Kejriwal.
R.I.P AAP