To Stop Breathing Poison, Delhi Needs To Stop Buying More Cars. Here Is What It Will Take To Do That

What if Delhi stops buying cars for the window of six months? Will it help improve the air quality? Yes, it certainly will.

Today¡¯s PM2.5 levels are 375 for Delhi (50-100 is ¡®satisfactory¡¯, 375 falls under ¡®very poor¡¯ category) and mind it, this is one of the better days. However, with Diwali getting closer it would cross the 500 mark.

Solution? Well, if Delhi decides not to buy cars for six months, the city would put roughly 87,000 cars (including SUVs and MUVs) off the Delhi roads which is certain to make the air healthier and cleaner to breathe in.

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The adjectives like 'Gas Chamber', 'choking' are making headlines to describe the magnitude of the problem and if adequate measures aren¡¯t taken, the day is not far when Delhi/NCR residents will collapse on the road on their way to groceries stores or their homes.

Children and older people are the most vulnerable to this and it has already reached a level where there is no leeway ahead and some hard steps are needed to be taken by putting out comforts at the backseat.

Between 2013 to 2017, Delhi added 5, 23, 367 cars

Yes, you read it right. Delhi added these number of cars in just four years. By the end of March 2014, Delhi had 26,29, 343 cars and jeeps registered in Delhi plying on the roads. By the end of March 2017, a total of 31, 52, 710 were running on Delhi road chocking the residents.

Delhi Statistical Hand Book 2017

Similarly, Delhi resident bought 1, 96, 013 cars in the year 2015-16 and the total number of cars in Delhi reached 29,86, 579. This is the year when Delhi pollution had reached the zenith and people are panicking. Even after so much of trouble, we continued to buy cars.

Eventually, the Delhi government came up with the Odd-Even mechanism to contain the carbon emissions. The idea was certainly worth trying, but Delhi residents didn¡¯t get the message which was quite loud and clear. In 2016-17, Delhi bought a total of 1,66, 131 cars and took the total number to 31, 52,710.

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These numbers were taken from the Delhi Statistical Handbook 2017 and it¡¯s November 2018 now, and by the time the latest report of this handbook will come in December, the number of cars in Delhi would cross 33 lakh mark.

Delhi buys an average 1, 74, 455 a year and a whopping 14,537 cars per month

If we look at the average car buying capacity of Delhites, it would come around 1, 74, 455 a year and 14, 537 cars a month which is way too much if you are worried about the increase in levels of pollutions in your city.

Every car roughly emits 3500gms of carbon dioxide (CO2)

Though it¡¯s quite difficult to give a definite figure for how much a car can pollute as Delhi has a variety of cars including CNG, Diesel, and petrol and its engine capacities also vary from 800cc to 3000 cc SUVs.

But let¡¯s take mid-level segment cars in all three fuel categories-CNG, petrol and diesel. If we take mid-level 1000-1300 cc petrol vehicle, it does, according to a study done by Bangalore based lab published in autotechreview, 216 gms/km carbon emission and if we take 20 km as the average distance a car is driven in Delhi, this emissions would come around 4,320 gms of carbon emission a day.

Similarly, a diesel vehicle with a capacity lesser than 1400 cc emits 202 gms/kg of carbon and for CNG vehicle, the emission comes around 178 gms/kg which would come around 3, 560 gms/kg of carbon dioxide. Majority of the hatchback in Delhi run on CNG.

AFP

Solution?

If we stop buying cars for six months, we will put 87,000 cars off the Delhi road. If a car's average run is 20 km a day, it emits 3500gms of Carbon dioxide and we can calculate how much pollution these 87,000 cars would do.

Mind it, these figures are only for Delhi, if we include other adjoining places of NCR, we will certainly reduce the emission levels to a large extent and make our city a better place to live and breathe in.