Delhi - The Gas Chamber

Schools are closed in Delhi, elders are told to remain in house, Construction activities are suspended,Delhi government has declared health emergency in the state, Kejriwal is planning to meet his Haryana counterpart Manohar Lal Khattar.
All these recent string of events is pointing towards the deteriorating condition of air in NCR(National Capital Region).

Delhi is witnessing a thick blanket of smog which reduced visiblity. Due to low visibility many accidents were reported from across the Delhi.

Moreover, On 11th of November, oil ministry has taken a key decision to roll out plan for BS-VI compliant vehicles.
Earlier the date to roll out BS-VI norms was April-2020 but due to excessive air pollution in our National Capital Region(NCR), Center has advanced it to April 2018.

Central Pollution Control Board  (CPCB) of India has reveled the AQI(Air Quality Index) for PM2.5.
The AQI for Delhi air keeps crossing 500 while the safety limit is only 50.

The reason for the pollution is increasing concentration of PM 2.5 in air.

Let's break the issue in simpler terms.

What is PM 2.5?

PM(Particulate Matter) 2.5 is the major air pollutant which you can't see from naked eye. These are very fine particles, 100 times thinner than your hair means are only 3% of human hair in diameter.Due to its small size, it easily enters in our eyes, lungs with the air that we inhale which may result in serious health problems.
It may cause heart attacks,lung cancer and serious eye aliments.

Due to their small size, these particles are called PM 2.5, where 2.5 represents their size in microns.

1 micron is equal to 1 millionth of a meter.

Where PM 2.5 comes from?

The major sources of these particles are vehicles, construction activities, wood and stubble burning.

What is AQI?

Air Quality Index is a parameter to measure the quality of air, the more the AQI the worse is the air.
Different countries have different standards for measuring AQI.

Why Delhi AQI gets worse?

There are several reasons for Delhi air to get polluted.

1) Stubble Burning : The burning of crop residues in neighbouring states of Punjab and Haryana.
To counter this Arvind Kejriwal was scheduled to meet Haryana CM Khattar.
Every year 30 to 40% of air pollution is due to stubble burning.

2) Industrialization:Growing number of industries.

3) Growing number of vehicles.

Last year also Delhi was covered by the blanket of smog due to stubble burning in its surrounding states but this year a study by air-quality monitoring agency claims that 40% of the pollution was due to the recent dust strom in West Asia.

Solutions to the problem :

1) To counter stubble burning: Happy seeder machine must be used to plant next crop.

Actually, when rice crop gets ready, farmers do harvesting after which rice straws are left in the soil. As these rice straws are not good for animal feeding or any other purpose, farmers simply burn it to make the ground ready for next crop, that is wheat.
If this stubble(rice straws) is not burnt before seeding next crop, then seeds of next crop gets clogged by them.

Note: After harvesting crop left overs remain there which need to be removed before next crop seeding.

So a simple solution to this problem is to use the Happy Seeder machine which seeds the next crop while cutting the rice straws.

It is bit costly, but to counter the major problem of breathing quality air in NCR, Delhi government must provide Happy Seeders to those who can't afford it.

2) Promoting use of public transports: Use of public transport should be encouraged, as vehicles create a lot of pollution.

3) Very old vehicles should not be allowed they must be replaced by BS-VI.

4) Entry of heavy vehicles shouldn't​ be allowed near Delhi. There must be roundabout ways to do the same.

5) Rules like
a) Even-Odd scheme
b) Dump old car to get new one
must be implemented to curb the pollution.

6) Car pooling must be encouraged.

Some basic terminologies:

1) National Capital Region (NCR): The region around Delhi is called NCR.
Delhi being the National Capital, it attracts lot of people for employment and other purposes, which in turn over populates it.
So in order to mitigate this problem from Delhi and to attract the people to its neighbours Rajasthan, Haryana etc were given status of NCR.

2) BS-VI: Few months back government announced roll out of BS-IV compliant vehicles, after that all the new vehicles which were getting registered were compliant with BS-IV parameters.

Vehicles got upgraded from BS-II to BS-III then BS-IV , and now we are planning to move to BS-VI.

As we upgrade vehicle from one norm to another, they got more efficient in terms of saving our environment.
Means higher the norm lesser is the pollution.
BS stands for Bharat Stage.