Delhi Air pollution: Lessons India can learn from China

Delhi Air pollution: Lessons India can learn from China

November 6, 2016: The Capital city of India faces the worst smog in 17 years, and it is worsening day by day but the authorities are yet to devise a proper action plan in order to tackle such a serious problem.

Since China had to deal with a similar situation and they managed to deal with it efficiently, India can follow China's war against pollution policies.
Here are the few measures China took:

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Here are the few measures China took to counter Pollution in their country:

Red alert

In 2015, in the month of December Beijing issued its first 'red alert' for high pollution and shut down schools, construction sites, factories and an odd-even rule were applied to private cars until the quality of air dropped below the hazardous levels. People were also urged to wear masks and take all kinds of protective measures.

Imposing Laws

On January 1, 2015, China's Environmental Protection Law came into force. Before the amendment took place, the cost of compliance was much higher than the cost of noncompliance.

According to Jonesday.com report, "The average cost of noncompliance under the ECL was less than 10 percent of the cost of environment rectification. Thus, polluters strategically chose payment of penalties over compliance for the obvious economic benefits." In order to address the problem, EPL established a new penalty process, according to which the penalties are to be calculated on a daily basis until the rectification is completed.

In 2015, the country also appointed an environmental scientist as its Environment Minister.

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Online air reporting system

After China came to know about their hazardous quality of air, China created an online air reporting system to monitor the hourly air pollution data from over 1,500 sites which included the details of airborne particulate matter (PM), nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide, ozone and carbon monoxide.

Currently, the government regularly also releases air quality rankings for the cities.

Off the road

By 2017, high-polluting vehicles will be taken off the roads. Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai, and other large Chinese cities are slowly restricting the number of vehicles in order to curb air pollution.

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By 2017, Beijing region is also aiming to reduce the use of coal by replacing it with electricity from non-fossil fuels and natural gas. It also aims to close all excess iron, cement, steel, and all heavy industries that burn coal. By 2020 the city aims to be completely coal-free.

– by Pinaz Kazi of NewsGram. Twitter: @PinazKazi

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