|
FIFTH
COLUMN
Clean
Up Officialdom
The
anti-pollution action in Delhi should first target the filth in the Government
By
Tavleen
Singh
There
is something disgusting about the zeal with which government inspectors,
protected by the police, have swept through Delhi in recent days ostensibly
"sealing" polluting factories. Heartlessly oblivious to the
cries of suddenly jobless workers, oblivious to the suicide by a businessman
who allegedly could not survive his factory being closed down, oblivious
even to the angry protests by local MPs and MLAs. But this is all in a
good cause you will say. After all, shouldn't the citizens of Delhi be
entitled to clean air. So, how can it be called disgusting?
 For
a start, because Delhi's air is not going to become any cleaner by closing
a few factories down. More than 60 per cent of the pollution in the city's
air is caused by vehicular traffic. Nobody has been able to do anything
about this because the Supreme Court's order last year that polluting
government buses be taken off the road has been ignored. The Delhi Government
was given nearly three years to ensure its buses converted to compressed
natural gas but governments can get away with things that ordinary citizens
cannot, so nothing was done. Government employees are also more powerful
than ordinary citizens, so when they took to the streets to protest against
eight-year-old buses being withdrawn from service they succeeded. The
buses continue to vomit their pollutants into Delhi's air and the protesting
workers continue to keep their jobs.
With the
best intentions in the world the Supreme Court also tried to get the Delhi
Government to clean the Yamuna but the river continues to be a sewer and
will in all likelihood remain that way. So, how is it that the move to
close the factories down has been seemingly so successful? The simple
answer to that question: there is money to be made.
If you can
afford to pay off the inspectors when they come with their seals you can
pollute as much as you like and still remain open. So, ever since the
business of closing down factories began much money has exchanged hands.
Even factories that are not responsible for pollution of any kind and
have certificates to prove this have to pay. Otherwise the inspectors
quite simply refuse to recognise their non-pollution certificates.
Often factory
owners pay the bribes the inspectors demand because many of these factories
are in so-called residential areas. In fact, they are now mostly industrial
areas but since this is not recognised by the Delhi Master Plan these
areas continue to be declared residential. You can stay open as long as
you have enough money for bribes. The end result of the drive is that
thousands of very poor workers will lose their jobs and be forced back
into the poverty of their villages, thousands of small entrepreneurs will
be out of business and Delhi will remain as polluted as ever. Who is to
blame? Not the Supreme Court because it is clearly trying hard to clean
up Delhi's environment. Not the factory owners who built their factories
in the wrong place because they had no choice. Not even the corrupt inspectors
because corruption to them is a way of life. No, the blame lies entirely
with the Delhi Government and with governments in general.
Were they
sleeping when these illegal factories and vast illegal industrial estates
were being built? Why didn't someone put a stop to things earlier? Shouldn't
someone be trying to punish the officials who closed their eyes to what
was going on when it could have been stopped? Should not governments that
have been unable to provide the basic necessities of urban life-drinking
water, sanitation, electricity-be punished for their failures? Would somebody
like to go to the Supreme Court with another public-interest litigation
to demand these things?
While we
are about it should we not consider litigation to demand that Lutyens'
Delhi, that most exalted of exalted residential areas in the capital,
be cleansed of officials and politicians? What right do they have to live
like princes, off taxpayers money, in the best part of town when they
are unable to provide a halfway decent standard of living to the citizens
of this country.
The Supreme
Court, with the best of intentions, has ended up being responsible for
turning their guns against the most helpless people in Delhi. It is a
move that has gone seriously awry and with no obvious benefit to anyone
except the armies of corrupt officials. If the court is serious about
cleaning up Delhi's environment then let it train its guns on the real
criminals: government officials and agencies. If polluting factories can
be closed so easily then it should be as easy to order the Delhi Government
to take its filthy buses off the roads and if government employees lose
their jobs so be it. We cannot have one set of rules for ordinary Indians
and another for the government. Democracy is about rights not privileges.
Top
|
METRO TODAY
Sagarika
Ghose's The Gin Drinkers is easily the best diaspora novel set in India
and an account of existential dilemmas of Indian PLUs , writes INDIA TODAY
Deputy Editor Swapan Dasgupta in 