An auto spewing noxious fumes
In this post, I’m going to write about the air-pollution that goes on in my city, Kolkata and the mechanisms that directly or indirectly support it. Before you start to navigate away from this page, thinking this kind of pollution exists in every other developing nation, think again. Heck, even other parts of our country are much cleaner.
Most of the polution here is caused by a kind of vehicle named auto rickshaw (auto in short). Almost all of these vehicles use a kind of adulterated fuel called katatel in the local dialect. Katatel is a lethal concoction of petrol, diesel, kerosene, naptha and impurities. Around 60,000 of these autos ply on the roads everyday, spewing bluish, lethal fumes which kill people.
Perils of adulterated fuel
The perils of breathing katatel-poisoned air are many, probably too many to be addressed in this post. The foul fumes spewed by the autorickshaws contain toxic components like carbon monoxide, hydrocarbon, RPM, naptha, benzene and particulate matter. These cause damage to the lung, heart, kidney, eye and throat. Diseases caused by these pollutants include chronic cough, cancer, asthma, bronchitis, neuro and cardiac disorder. Degenerative diseases like Alzheimer and Parkinson’s can also be attributed to this. It has been found recently that breathing katatel fumes affects our ability to reproduce. A study found that 15 to 20 percent of all pregnancies in the city lead to miscarriages, and this number is on the rise. The children and the old are particularly vurnerable, so are the daily commuters. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) was filed by a concerned citizen in the High Court in April 2008, regarding the amount of air pollution in the city caused by the autos. The court consulted the Environment Department of the state government, which recommended that the polluting two stroke autos running on adulterated fuel should be replaced by cleaner four-stroke autos running on LPG. The state government was given 8 months time to convert existing autos to LPG-powered autos. According to the court directive, the government should strive to convert all two-stroke autos to four-stroke autos by December 31st, 2008. After December 31st, the two stroke autos will be banned and any two-stroke autos seen on the road will be seized immediately. Strangely, the government took no steps whatsoever about the issue till December 25th, 2008, when the transport minister issued a statement regarding how they will try their best to address the situation. Even then, nothing fruitful was done. [6]
A two stroke auto spitting smoke
On January 1st, 2009, the police lazily and erratically started seizing autos. Only 6 autos were seized on the first day, and when a two-stroke katatel auto driver was asked about the ban, he replied[2],
Nobody can take away our vehicles because we have the full support of our party. We have stayed with the party through thick and thin. Our leaders have assured us that our livelihood will not be taken away,
Let me explain what gives this illegal auto driver so much confidence. The auto drivers have the backing of the pollitical parties, both the rulling and the opposition parties. The parties need cadres to make a rally successful or use them during polls. The auto operators provide a ready pool of foot soldiers and so the political leaders never antagonize them. Besides, each of the 70,000 autos — 40,000 registered and 30,000 unregistered — pay between Rs 5 and Rs 10 every day to the Citu* union under which they are organised. This means, Citu earns anything between Rs 3.35 lakh and Rs 6.7 lakh daily from the autos. In this situation, the political parties do not want their steady flow of income and ready pool of foot soldiers to go away.
An autorickshaw driver filling spurious oil into his vehicle's tank
Let us come back to what happened to the banned autos. On the second day of the ban, police became a bit harsher on the autos, seizing only 37 autos. This prompted the drivers of illegal autos to let loose bursts of violence that appeared to be aimed at causing inconvenience to commuters and holding the law hostage with the threat of more lawlessness. They were led and supported by the leaders of the opposition party who took this opportunity to appease the large number of auto drivers, and get their votes in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. This prompted the state government to slow down the illegal auto-seizing operation and ask for a legal extension of the deadline by three months. The chief minister confirmed the move to seek a new deadline, saying auto drivers “cannot be asked to change (to LPG) one fine morning” — although the court order had come on July 18th, last year.
The government advocate sought an extension of the deadline upto 31st July, 2009, but the court said,
Given the inability, for whatever reasons, of the state government to implement the order passed on July 18, 2008, it would be necessary for this court to monitor further progress with regard to the implementation of the said scheme at frequent intervals.
The court asked the government to submit fortnightly action-taken reports till polluting three-wheelers are off the roads and set. It has been the same routine since then; every time during the hearing in the court, the government advocate expresses the inability of the government to
A two-stroke auto belching smoke, as usual
meet a deadline to clean Calcutta’s air. The bench of judges the bench berates the government and then gives it one more deadline. On one such hearing the government expressed it’s inability to seize illegal autos due to the oncoming elections, on the pretext that the police will be busy with the election process. But the government was ready to provide police forces for the IPL matches to be held in Kolkata. [7] On one instance, an exasperated court said,
It is unfortunate that the state government is not in a position to carry out the court orders in time. We still doubt whether the order will be carried out at all. But still we are providing them time.
The words of Subhas Dutta, the original petitioner of the PIL, sums up my thoughts :
I am convinced that the government will not be in a position to carry out the court orders by July 31. Only the government’s excuse changes, otherwise everything is like an action replay.
The latest deadline, as is evident, is 31st July, 2009; but as expected, the government will not be able to meet the deadline. On the other hand, on the issue of seizing spurious fuel, Calcutta police have done precious little but their counterparts in the South and North 24-Parganas districts have seized around 62,000 litres of adulterated fuel in one-and-a-half months. Some 46 people have been arrested and 34 cases registered. In South 24-Parganas, around Rs 30,000 has been seized from various katatel counters along with cans of spurious oil. [8] [9] This demonstrates that it’s political will, and nothing else, that’s stopping the police from acting.
In the meantime, the auto drivers are employing a novel method to stall the conversion to cleaner fuel. They are deliberately sabotaging the applications for bank loans required for buying the four stroke autos. Out of the 20,000 applications submitted to the bank, around 17,000 had submitted sabotaged applications, with missing or incorrect information. We can’t blame them for resisting the conversion. In other Indian cities, where such conversions had taken place, the government had prepared a conversion package for the auto drivers from which the drivers stood to benefit. Not only they received monetary benefits, but they were also given the knowledge that they were helping to keep the city’s air clean, and to keep the people healthy. Here, the politicians mislead the drivers by saying that the high court is trying to take away their means of livelihood by banning the autos. They are not told about the environmental or the health concerns.
Disorders
It’s April 11th, 2009 now and banned autos, spewing fatal fumes, ply on the road unhitched. People are falling ill everyday. Around 10,000 people die every year in this city due to lung cancer. Our city is even being called the cancer capital of India. The cases of bronchitis, asthma are also rising steeply, but who cares? Not the government. It’s only concern is election and votes, not the health of the citizens.Even the people are not concerned for themselves. I see my friends persistenly coughing, wheezing yet oblivious to all that’s happening around them. Everyday my dad returns home wheezing and coughing, yet he refuses to acknowledge the pollution. Even I was not concerned untill I was affected. In my quest to find a working respirator in the city, I could find none. All I could find was pathetic “Pollution Mask”s, which have air- tight plastic in place of the filters, and holes to let the polluted air in! A few people, who are concerned about their health, do a futile attempt by covering their noses with their handkerchief; but they are looked down by others, whose general feeling is, “If you are affected by the pollution, you have a weak constitution”.
So, is there any hope for us? I’d say no. With a selfish government, unconcerned people, and powerless courts, I’d say we are destined to die like this.
So, if you plan on visiting India during the next holidays, please, don’t come to Kolkata.
References :
- Cancer cocktail on roads: 50% kerosene & naphtha in auto oil – The Telegraph
- Toxic toll on nervous system – The Telegraph
- Two stroke peril : maim and kill – The Telegraph
- Smell the air, feel the heart – The Telegraph
- Air plays foul in pregnancy – The Telegraph
- Two-stroke tactic: tarry & parry – The Telegraph
- See no evil, smell no stink: Let the kids breathe poison, it’s poll time – The Telegraph
- Slo-mo crackdown lets smoking autos rule road – The Telegraph
- Cops behind smokescreen – 695 litres: foul fuel police seized in three months – The Telegraph
