NEW DELHI: Delhi’s vehicular pollution can be reduced by 15-20 per cent if commuters turn off their vehicle engines while waiting at traffic signals, city Environment Minister Gopal Rai said on Wednesday.
Kickstarting the 26-day “Red Light On, Gaadi Off” campaign in the national capital from the ITO traffic signal, Rai appealed to the people of Delhi to act responsibly and stop burning fuel at traffic signals.

“The campaign is an attempt to reduce vehicular pollution. Delhi has around one crore registered vehicles. Altogether, vehicles burn fuel at traffic signals for around 15-20 minutes every day. This campaign aims to stop fuel-burning at signals.

“If the city’s two crore population joins this campaign and does its bit, then we can reduce around 15-20 per cent pollution from vehicles. This campaign is voluntary. I appeal to the people of Delhi to make it a success,” he said.

The Aam Admi Party (AAP) government’s campaign, which will go on till November 15, aims to spread ground-level awareness at 100 traffic signals in the capital. A total of 2,500 civil defence volunteers will be standing with placards, asking commuters to switch off the engines of their vehicles, at these signals.

Launching the initiative at the ITO intersection, Rai gave a flower to a commuter while requesting him to turn off the engine of his car.

He said Delhi can become pollution-free only if the government and the public work together.

“We have started the ”Red Light On, Gaadi Off” campaign today in Delhi. So far, the Delhi government and other agencies have been working to control pollution. But now, Delhi”s population of two crore people is being made a part of it to fulfil their responsibility in the fight against pollution. To make Delhi pollution-free, the government and the public must come together to fight it,” Rai told reporters.

Civil defence volunteer Geeta, a resident of Sadar Bazar, said she received a good response from the commuters, who are turning their vehicle engines off when asked to do so.

“The response is very good till now. People are switching off their engines when we are asking them. No one argued or refused to do so,” she said.

Another volunteer, Himanshu Wadhwa, a resident of Burari, said people were acting responsibly.

“We have noticed that people are aware about the deteriorating situation of pollution in the national capital. Many of them are already switching off their engines. They understand their responsibility,” he said.

The civil defence volunteers will spread awareness among people at the traffic signals from 8 am to 8 pm, Rai said.

The initiative is only an awareness drive and nobody will be issued a “challan”, the minister had said on Tuesday.

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India will now witness higher pollution. There are additional dangers this year. Act soon

As India faces a steep rise in Covid-19 cases, it is critical to employ all reasonable strategies to decrease transmission and to lower the number of severe infections which burden the health care system. Reducing air pollution is one such strategy that may be more important for India than any other country globally. So far, the spread of the pandemic has occurred during spring and summer when air pollution is relatively mild, but the interaction of high winter pollution levels with Covid-19 infections can have serious consequences.

India has some of the highest exposures to air pollution in the world and faces a double impact from outdoor air pollution in cities and throughout the Indo-Gangetic Plain, plus household air pollution from the millions of chulhas in daily use especially in rural areas. Covid-19 is a respiratory infection, and we know from other such infections that air pollution can worsen their severity through its impact on the immune response. In 2019, nearly 200,000 respiratory infection deaths in India were linked to air pollution exposure. Simply put, air pollution may be an important factor that moves a mild Covid-19 infection to one that requires acute medical care.

Although direct evidence of the impact of air pollution on Covid-19 is limited, and more time will be needed to conduct proper studies, evidence from the SARS epidemic in 2003 (caused by a similar virus) indicated a link between air pollution and increased mortality. Evidence from multiple countries, including studies from India, shows consistent associations between both short-term exposure to air pollution and hospitalisation for pneumonia infections (in children), and between long-term exposure and several types of respiratory infections in children.

Studies of short-term increases in air pollution suggest a worsening severity of co-incident respiratory infections. This co-exposure interaction is supported by mechanistic studies which show how air pollution reduces the immune response to respiratory infections. For example, in the lower airways, where respiratory infections are most damaging, immune cells called macrophages can digest and destroy viruses and bacteria, but under conditions of air pollution exposure, these cells become filled up with particles and are no longer effective against the infection. Emerging research also suggests the air pollution may alter lung cells to increase the number of Sars-CoV-2 virus receptors.

In addition, another group of studies indicates that longer-term exposure to air pollution increases the risk of infections, especially in those with pre-existing chronic lung disease. In this case, air pollution can lead to permanent structural changes in the lungs that erode a person’s reserves. An infection that might lead to mild symptoms in a healthy person results in severe impact in those with chronic lung disease. This may be one reason that many of the same diseases caused by air pollution are also present in the majority of people with Covid-19 infections severe enough to require hospitalisation.

Along with these roles in increasing susceptibility to infections and worsening infection severity, some reports also suggest a role of air pollution in increasing transmission of the virus. Studies have detected the presence of the virus on air pollution particles, but this does not mean these particles are themselves infectious and current evidence does not suggest that the virus hitching a ride on air pollution particles is an important route of transmission. Further, there is little evidence to indicate that infections occur outdoors except when people are in very close proximity. Although there is no direct evidence, there is a plausible pathway by which air pollution may enhance transmission by making it more likely that an infected individual will cough.

So, what does this all mean for India? From one perspective, the current timing of the pandemic in India during the months of the year when air pollution is at its lowest levels suggests a window of opportunity during which concerted actions to reduce virus transmission may be effective in “flattening the curve”.

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