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-   -   Delhi: Odd - Even Rule returns from 13 November 2023 (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/street-experiences/273020-delhi-odd-even-rule-returns-13-november-2023-a.html)

Back again the odd-even rule:

The curtains go up, the charade begins. The Govt hopes it will be measured by the illusion of action rather than the results of their flapping their hands and legs.

This is like applying band aid on a heart attack. Stuble burning followed by uncovered construction, by hastily filled up road holes, by trucks, by the single stroke two wheelers, by wood burning cooking fires of the poor are the largest causes of air pollution in Delhi NCR. Behind all of these come the cars - literally. But to be seen to be taking action against the dirty rich has political brownie points and yes it must be helping by a few percentage points.

Let the comedy of illusions begin.

Supreme Court raps the Delhi Govt on their odd-even scheme for pollution control.

https://www.hindustantimes.com/india...346547188.html

The Delhi government on Monday announced a week-long odd-even scheme from November 13 to November 20. This is the 4th time that the AAP government is planning to bring back the alternate-day scheme to reduce the number of cars on the road. In this scheme, vehicles with a registration number ending in an even digit ply on even dates and odd digits on odd dates.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked whether the odd-even scheme in Delhi has ever worked in curbing pollution. "It's all optics," the top court observed a day after the Delhi government announced that the odd-even scheme would be back from November 13 to November 20.

Delhi environment minister Gopal Rai said the government will first study the Supreme Court order and then go for the odd-even rule, after the Apex Court on Tuesday rapped government for the pollution situation in the National Capital and asked whether the odd-even scheme to ration the number of cars plying on the roads has ever been successful.

The State govt in Punjab and Delhi are with the same political party. Yet they cannot get organized on stubble burning. In earlier years I'm told this stubble burning took place in September when the smoke dissipated much faster due to warmer temperatures. Due to change of crop preferences* the stubble burning and fresh planting has shifted to the start of winter and hence this problem - those familiar with agriculture can opine.

Thank you Supreme Court for pointing out this farce of applying band aid on a broken leg.

*I'm told this change of crop preferences {maize vs wheat??} has been driven by MNCs such as Cargil but all this is hearsay.

Vehicular pollution is not the root cause of any serious pollution. By the NGT and SC logic, the US which has 10 time more cars than India must be choked in pollution by now. Everyone knows the root cause are stubble burning and black smoke emitting goverment vehicles(some as old as 1980). But dare they antagonize the farmers who form the bulk of the voting population. At the same time the government must be seen doing something to control the pollution. Enter the tax paying car owners who are easy and soft targets for the bureaucracy.
The NGT is pounding a dying snake and calling it pollution control. Diesel vehicles are dying and in the next 10 years barely 5% of the vehicles plying will be diesel. And I'm pretty sure Delhi will still have the pollution problem.

Diesel ban was a easy-to-sell and easy-to-implement, and not the difficult-to-sell and difficult-to-implement story, the later of course is the RCA.

Having said that, a new report also came up attributing vehicular pollution as increasing the overall baseline pollution that cascades the effect of a burning crop pollution.

https://www.ndtv.com/delhi-news/delh...-study-4554207

I noticed this too - a few extracts that seemed specific.
I have stopped trusting news articles blindly. Based on the below extracts, i feel the actual CSE report itself could be far.more balanced and probably isn't going to be about ban cars and 2 wheelers. That's really a dead horse when it comes to Delhi.

Shouldn't they be able to figure out the pollution cause by analysing the soot ? Even the fire cracker emission can be distinguished. Now the cause is being directed towards Haryana. Geography sometimes plays a major role as in Los Angeles. But we as humans have found solutions for everything.

With lot of things being the cause, not sure which one lobby is being appeased by not taking stringent measures.

You are factually wrong my friend. Vehicular pollution is a serious component in Delhi
as well as US of A.

Just a casual search throws up the following links

https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-new...sions-in-india

https://loksabhadocs.nic.in/Refinput...in%20India.pdf

https://auto.howstuffworks.com/air-p...-from-cars.htm

https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/car...-air-pollution

https://earth.org/air-pollution-in-california/

Stubble burning and events like Diwali might be contributing to peaks and hence have to be controlled but one should not close ones eyes to the slow killer i.e. vehicular pollution. Let the love for cars not make us blind to the realities of the real world.

I 'll like to add:

1. Rice was not traditionally grown in Punjab and surrounding regions. But that would be pre green revolution.

2. Rice is the staple diet for a majority, and it had to be grown somewhere for food sufficiency. So it's not just MNCs. Government and citizens are equal parties.

3. The cropping pattern for the rice has got delayed in the last decade or so. Earlier rice cropping was done in May. But since the crop needs a lot of water, it required pumping out water from the ground. To reduce pumping of ground water and usage of electricity, cropping was delayed to coincide with monsoons. Hence stumbles are now burnt around Oct-Nov.

4.The state govt. can't do anything. The marginal farmer has little choice. Alternate solutions are expensive for him.

5. Perhaps if a same party is at the centre and in the state, a solution can be reached. But it would need investments from the government side. Though, I have reservations here. In Haryana, the party in power is also in power at the centre. But on way to Delhi, I see stubble burning being rampant in Haryana too.

Not associated with farming, but some acquaintances are in farming. So above is my understanding from what I have heard.

Stubble burning aside , a query to the people who live in Delhi. What are the odds that a single household will not have a 2 wheeler or a 4 wheeler ending with an even or odd number. I mean for example I have a vehicle whose number ends with 3 and another whose ends with 6, does the odd even rule actually work I do get not all households will have multiple vehicles but more curious on the impact of the odd even rule.

Till very recently, all my cars ended in even numbers. More importantly, they were all BS4 diesels. Ergo, they couldn’t be used in Delhi for a good 2 months. Last year, we had to resort to Uber-Ola whenever we had to go to Delhi, which is literally twice a week, minimum. So much for maintaining 3 cars.

Odd-even is a minor, short term inconvenience. It is still manageable. The BS4 diesel ban lasts much longer, and carries HEFTY penalties. We’ve all paid road tax for full 15 years and carry valid PUC certificates. We anyway cannot use our cars for the last 5 years. And now, also not for 2-3 months every year. We loose 33% vehicle life straightaway, and a further 20-25% of the remaining thanks to GRAP norms.

I think this evident change in the utility of the car is a driving factor behind the proliferation of budget EVs in Delhi NCR. Tiago EVs are as common as WagonRs nowadays in our part of the world. Running costs, refinement etc are not the primary drivers. The ability to use the car for 365 days for full 15 years, without having to worry about random hare brained restrictions is. Now that restrictions have officially spread over to Faridabad and Gurgaon districts as well, this trend will only increase.

Green number plates are exempt from all restrictions.

At least this time around announcement of odd even has been made well in advance but this application of GRAP III and GRAP IV norms are ridiculous in my opinion.

If one is out of town and the GRAP norms mandating banning of BS-III/IV vehicles are made applicable, what are you supposed to do? Leave your car out of town and come back via public transport?

Last year this happened to me couple of times. Prayed to the almighty the whole time while returning and offered prasad at the society temple very next day, for not letting the babus take away my hard earned money.

Not sure, if such data of household would have ever been collected. But other way, we can make a guess from traffic on road during odd-even rule days and it was significantly less, atleast in past years when this rule was applied. So, probability of having both odd and even vehicle in a household is low.

I don't know how effective the rule is from pollution reduction perspective but driving in Delhi in those days was sheer pleasure.

Wheat is the staple diet for Punjab and Haryana. But, there isn't much price difference in lowest and highest variety of wheat and hence wheat growers rely on MSP.

On the contrary, the price difference amongst low and high (Basmati) have a staggering difference. Even the Basmati variants can differ from Rs 70/kg to Rs 300+/kg. Hence, the incentive for rice farming.

Apart from the pollution (stubble burning), rice is a water intensive crop and in a water deficit area like Punjab Haryana, it drains groundwater like crazy. Haryana even tried few years back to lure farmers away from rice cultivation by giving additional incentive for other crops, but the rice profits far outweigh the govt incentives.

However, a single person driving a gas guzzler 2000-3000 cc SUV or a 1000 cc+ bike can't really point fingers at others. (unpopular opinion)