Man-made crisis

Delhi, leading the NCR with a combination of adverse factors, has already broken the world record for Air Quality Index (AQI), making the headlines bold and telling. But perhaps waking up will take some time. There is no dearth of authorities who are and were aware of the impending environmental hazard, but instead of a well thought-out long term strategy or some short-term relief our approach appears to be a classic case of ad-hocism. On the other hand, as is well known, the two-stroke two-wheelers and three-wheelers emit far more hazardous mixture of hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides, some of which like Benzene are known to be carcinogenic, but their numbers continue to increase.