Delhi pollution is at an all time high. Delhi’s pollution is constituted of a complex mix of pollution from human activities (vehicle emissions, industry, construction and residential fuel burning) as well as natural sources like dust and sea salt. The reasons of pollution are endless.

Firstly, there has been a rapid growth in the population. The pressure and haphazard growth has played its part in the deterioration of the environment.

Secondly, there has been highly unsystematic and unplanned development of industries and factories. Studies have revealed that only about 20% of the industrial units are set up in the approved industrial areas whereas the rest of them are in residential and commercial areas.

Thirdly, there has been a huge rise in the vehicular population, in spite of the metro railways, aggravating traffic congestion and increasing air and noise pollution. It has also been reported that the number of vehicles plying on the roads of Delhi is more than that of the three metropolitan cities of Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai taken together.

Fourthly, there has also been an ever-increasing number of diesel vehicles plying on the roads, which are largely responsible for the air pollution.

To find a solution for this problem the newly elected Kejriwal government in February, 2015 announced the odd- even formula. What basically happens in this formula is that odd numbered cars shall imply on the roads on odd days. And the same also happened for even numbered cars.

He had taken this inspiration from five other cities. These cities included- Bogota, Mexico, Paris, Beijing and Rome. In these cities no exemptions were given to anyone whatsoever. In all of them this rule  implied only the commercial vehicles were given allowance.

But the problem that Delhi’s odd- even has is that it has too many exemptions. There were a total of 28 exemptions out of which some were useless. One exemption mentioned that vehicles carrying children wearing school uniforms shall be exempted. Now let us imagine a situation- A father is going to drop his child in an odd numbered car on an even day. He shan’t be fined while going but shall be fined while coming back.
Also this rule only implied from 8 am to 8 pm. So a recent study announced that pollution levels remain the same but traffic is now distributed.

Also because of this trend, although Delhi has a good public transport system, what was noticed is that the buses and metros started to get more crowded and auto hikes touched the sky.

In the end, I would like to conclude by saying that this plan has certainly been successful in lessening the traffic but not done wonders when it comes to the pollution bit.

To make it successful, I hold the opinion that the number of exemptions should be reduced.