This piece is part of a collaborative campaign to tackle air pollution. Here’s how you can join the Fight To Breathe. Click here to power this campaign. 

The republic’s capital is choking in its own air. But its seat of power seems cocooned against a crisis that is increasingly turning existential for not just the city but many other states. In fact, the winter session of Parliament, which had kicked off amid “very poor” air quality, has seen few lawmakers care to raise questions about the issue.

As of December 17, only 52 of the total 6,800 questions asked in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha during the winter session were linked to air pollution. That makes up for 0.76 percent of the total. Of the total 52 questions on the subject, only 10 – or 0.14 percent of the total – focussed on the air in Delhi. Besides these starred and unstarred questions, four MPs mentioned the issue in their remarks, and three others laid statements in the house. There was no private member bill or a special mention linked to air pollution. 

If questions, verbal remarks, and statements are taken into account, less than 10 percent of the total number of MPs in the Parliament building touched upon the issue.

Meanwhile, the government, which has been quick to tomtom its initiatives to tackle the problem, in response to questions by at least three MPs, repeated the line that there is no evidence to link death or disease “exclusively” to air pollution.

Response ‘not to the point’

Newslaundry called at least two dozen MPs, of whom four spoke to us about the questions raised by them. 

Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha MP Derek O’Brien said he asked about deaths attributable to air pollution but “no data has been provided in the answer and no target set for reducing the pollution levels”. “NDA government: no data available government.”

Jyotsna Mahant, a Congress MP from Chhattisgarh’s Korba who had questioned the rationale behind exemptions to certain industries for approvals, said the answer did not address her concerns completely. 

“The government basically dodged the question and gave a vague answer. They talked about some instructions given to the state government and what the state government would do, etc. For the last one year, it is your government in both state and centre. What have you done so far?” she asked. “I am really concerned about the impact on health due to pollution in my constituency. There are so many industries…these industries emit a lot of fly ash.”

Congress MP from Maharashtra Dr Krisan Namdeo claimed his question wasn’t selected as a starred query and he was not satisfied with the response to his unstarred question on stubble burning.

“Actually, the government has not developed any mechanism to address the root cause of pollution. They also don’t have any intention to do anything. Because politicians go by people’s wishes and people don’t want any kind of restriction on them to carry out measures to control pollution,” he added.

Kerala Congress (M) Rajya Sabha MP Jose K Mani, who had asked about the NCAP, also said the answer from the government was “not to the point.” “The government’s policy on not only clean air, waste management or Ganga clean-up all are failures. They need to have a strong drive to clean up the air, clean up the waste. And we also need to have strong policies as well. But so much money has been spent on all these, but there is no result from it.”

But what questions were asked in Parliament? Who were the MPs who cared? Newslaundry looked at all that stood out.

No query from Rajya Sabha MPs from Delhi

In the Lok Sabha, of the 4,000 questions raised, only 29 questions asked by 37 MPs were related to air pollution. Of these, six questions were related to Delhi-NCR, five focused on the central government’s flagship National Clean Air Programme, and eight were on air pollution in states such as Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.

In the Rajya Sabha, 23 questions on air pollution were raised by 25 MPs. Of these, only four questions mentioned Delhi, while most of the rest were related to nationwide air quality deterioration and the implementation of the NCAP.

Of the 62 MPs in total who raised questions on the issue, 24 were from the BJP, 17 from the Congress and two MPs each from the Aam Aadmi Party, Trinamool Congress, Samajwadi Party, Janata Dal (United), and YSR Congress Party. Several parties such as the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, Biju Janata Dal, and Shiv Sena had one parliamentarian each raising questions on air pollution. 

All queries linked to air pollution were addressed to these six ministries: Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Ministry of Power, Ministry of Heavy Industries, Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, and Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change.

Of the seven Lok Sabha MPs from Delhi, only four raised questions about the city’s pollution crisis. None of the three Rajya Sabha MPs representing Delhi asked any questions about the capital’s worsening air quality.

Praveen Khandelwal, the BJP MP from Chandni Chowk, raised the issue of the severe impact of Delhi’s worsening air pollution on public health, particularly during the winter months. He also asked whether the Delhi government adequately utilised funds and resources provided by the central government for pollution control measures and, if so, the details of how these resources were used. He also asked why the funds, if underutilised, had not been fully deployed and whether any accountability measures had been initiated in response. 

Three other BJP MPs from Delhi – Ramvir Singh Bhiduri, Yogendra Chandolia and Harsh Malhotra – asked about initiatives taken by the central government to improve Delhi’s air quality. They also enquired about new policies to encourage electric vehicles to curb vehicular pollution, steps taken by the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) to improve air quality, and the progress of the NCAP. 

Karnataka BJP MP PC Gaddigoudar raised a question about the ‘pollution clinic’ started at Delhi’s RML Hospital and if the government had any plans to establish similar clinics in other cities too. 

Bihar BJP MP Rajiv Pratap Rudy asked about actions taken to comply with the Supreme Court direction to establish a special cell to curb pollution in Delhi and surrounding areas. He also asked if the government had conducted studies to determine the proportion of air pollution in Delhi attributed to stubble burning compared to other local sources, such as vehicular emissions, industrial pollutants and construction dust. 

The issue of stubble burning found mention in several pollution-related questions in both houses of the Parliament. 

In the Lok Sabha, BJP MP Sudheer Gupta and Shiv Sena MP Dhairyasheel Mane sought details of fines levied on farmers for stubble burning to prevent air quality deterioration in Delhi-NCR. Another question focused on the aid provided by the union government to states for managing stubble. 

In the Rajya Sabha, apart from the contribution of stubble farming to Delhi’s declining air quality, questions were raised about the feasibility of some pollution control measures and fatalities caused by toxic air. 

AAP MP Vikramjit Singh Sahney enquired if the MoEFCC had received any requests from the Delhi government for a meeting with the ministry officials and other stakeholders to assess the feasibility of artificial rain to combat air pollution in Delhi. 

Congress’ MP Pramod Tiwari asked whether air pollution in the country's 10 polluted cities caused seven percent of deaths, with Delhi having the highest fraction of annual fatalities attributable to concentration of PM 2.5, a major air pollutant.

The government, on its part, blamed a combination of factors, including vehicular and industrial emissions, open waste burning, and biomass burning, for Delhi’s polluted air. “During post-monsoon and winter months, lower temperature, lower mixing heights, inversion conditions and stagnant winds lead to trapping of the pollutants resulting in high pollution in the region. This is further aggravated due to the emissions from episodic events like stubble burning, firecrackers, etc,” read one of the answers tabled in the Parliament. 

NCAP in focus

A significant chunk of the air pollution-related questions – 14 out of the total 52 questions – focused on NCAP, the central government’s flagship scheme under which over 130 cities receive funds to improve their air quality. 

Most of these questions were about status of implementation, progress achieved under the programme, and utilisation of funds by different cities. 

Launched in 2019, NCAP also found mention in several answers by various ministries in response to any question on measures taken by the government to curb air pollution. 

However, the programme is facing various challenges like underutilisation of funds, non-attainment of air quality targets by concerned cities among others. In one of the responses, the government admitted that only 70 percent of the funds allocated under NCAP have been utilised since the programme launch.

Keeping pollutants in check

A few parliamentarians focused on identifying and tackling contributors of air pollution.

Telugu Desam Party MP Ganti Harish Madhur’s question highlighted ground-level ozone as a major pollutant in urban areas. He asked if the government had identified the various sources of ground-level ozone and various health ailments caused by exposure to it. 

Samajwadi Party’s Iqra Choudhary asked about actions taken by the government to control pollution caused by waste-to-energy plants. 

First-time MP Yaduveer Wadiyar sought data on India’s coal-fired electricity output and emissions from it. In a separate question, he also asked about the impact of the New Electric Vehicle Policy on reducing carbon emissions. 

Government’s static response

Measures taken by central agencies like the Central Pollution Control Board to tackle pollution, initiatives launched under the NCAP, efforts to curb stubble burning and similar measures were repeatedly quoted by the government in response to several questions on air pollution. 

On steps on tackling pollution in Delhi, the government highlighted monitoring of air quality through a network of over 1,500 stations, which also included live data tracking, daily AQI reports, and trend analyses by CPCB. Regulatory actions like the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) and sector-specific policies were implemented to address pollution from key sources such as vehicles, industries, and construction activities, the government said. 

It also outlined steps like promoting cleaner fuels, retrofitting diesel generator sets, and transitioning public transport to EVs and CNG buses among other measures. To address stubble burning, financial support for crop residue management machinery and policies for biomass utilisation were introduced, the government said. 

While the government has been quick to list its several initiatives to curb pollution, it did not provide any details on deaths due to air pollution, an issue raised by at least three MPs in their questions. 

Accepting that air pollution was one of the aggravating factors for respiratory ailments and associated diseases, the government maintained that there was no conclusive data available to “establish direct correlation of death/disease exclusively due to air pollution.”

“Health effects of air pollution are a synergistic manifestation of factors which include food habits, occupational habits, socioeconomic status, medical history, immunity and heredity etc. of the individuals,” the government said in one of its responses. It again went on to list steps taken to reduce air pollution. 

‘Pollution in our political framework’

In the Lok Sabha, Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi had on December 17 laid a statement about the need for comprehensive measures to address the health issues caused by pollution. This was weeks after BJP MPs Ramvir Singh Bhiduri and Dilip Saikia laid a statement about the air quality in Delhi on November 28 and November 29, respectively. 

On December 12, during a discussion on an amendment to the disaster management act, AIMIM MP Asaduddin Owaisi and RLP’s Nagaur MP Hanuman Beniwal talked about the need to view air pollution and industrial pollution through the lens of disaster management. Owaisi demanded that the definition of disaster should be expanded to include air pollution and heatwaves.

Meanwhile, in the Rajya Sabha, Kerala Congress (M) MP Jose K Mani raised concerns about rising cases of non-communicable diseases in the country on December 6 when he mentioned worsening air quality as among the factors.

On December 16, Kapil Sibal, while taking part in discussion on the journey of 75 years of Constitution, invoked pollution as a political metaphor. “This Constitution is a wonderful document. And while we all sit here, we are like stars in the political firmament. But if you look at the sky today, it is polluted. You can't even see the stars. And I am worried about the pollution that has entered into our political framework. And it is because of our failing,” he said. 

Newslaundry reached out to several BJP MPs named in this report. This copy will be updated if a response is received.

This piece is part of a collaborative campaign to tackle air pollution. Here’s how you can join the Fight To Breathe. Click here to power this campaign.