Delhi's bad air arrives on schedule every October. The response should not wait for the alarm

The forecast for Delhi this morning reads like a page torn from last year’s calendar. The Air Quality Early Warning System expects the capital’s air to slip into the “poor” band today and tomorrow and to stay there through the following week. Winds are dropping, nights are cooling, and forecasters warned on Monday that “unfavourable weather conditions could prevent pollutants from dispersing effectively”.

None of this is a surprise. That is precisely the problem.

A season everyone can see coming

Delhi’s air quality index was 139 on Monday, in the “moderate” range. Last week rain briefly pushed it to 86, and within a day it was back in the poor band. Every October the same sequence plays out: the monsoon leaves, the wind falls, paddy stubble is burnt across the north, festivals add their smoke, and the city’s own traffic, dust and construction, which never go away, are trapped closer to the ground.

The machinery built to respond, the Graded Response Action Plan, is designed to switch on in stages as readings worsen. It is a useful rulebook. But a rulebook that tightens after the haze has settled will always be a step behind a season whose arrival can be predicted to the week. In 2022 Stage I was ordered on Dussehra itself, after the air had already turned poor, with the commission describing the dip as “likely due to a localised influence”. Year after year the story is told as a sudden spike.

Where the stubble numbers are going

There is some good news. Between 15 September and 12 October farm fires fell by 53.3% in Haryana and by about a third in Uttar Pradesh. But the Centre’s own review last week found that fires had risen in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, states that have rarely been at the centre of the debate. By Monday Madhya Pradesh had recorded 370 incidents since mid-September, slightly more than Punjab’s 368. Most of the paddy crop is still to be cut.

The Centre has given states more than 3.54 lakh crop residue machines, 26,109 of them this year. Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan himself said the machines must work in the fields and not merely exist on paper, and the review noted that states were slow to spend what they had been given. Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav pointed to a quieter weakness: there are no satellite passes after 3 pm, so fires lit late in the afternoon can go uncounted unless people on the ground see them.

The fair objection

It is fair to say that farmers burn stubble because the window between paddy and wheat is short and the alternatives cost money, and that no amount of policing changes that arithmetic. It is also fair to say that stubble is only part of Delhi’s problem; on many days vehicles and dust matter more.

Both points argue for more planning, not less. Neither is a reason to wait.

What should happen now

First, act on the forecast. When the early warning system says air will turn poor in two days, the restrictions and the enforcement that come with the first stage of the plan should begin then, not after the index crosses the line.

Second, put the ground patrols Mr Yadav asked for in place now in the districts flagged for close watch, and extend them to the worst-hit districts of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. Late-afternoon fires should be logged as carefully as those a satellite can see.

Third, publish, district by district, how many residue machines are actually working, how many hours they ran and what farmers paid to hire them. A count of machines supplied says nothing about straw cleared.

Fourth, treat the city’s own sources as a year-round job. Dust control at building sites, policing of visibly polluting vehicles and enforcement against open burning do not need a seasonal trigger.

Delhi does not lack a plan, a forecast or ministers who understand the problem. It lacks the habit of acting before the air turns. This year, with the warning already issued, there is no excuse for discovering the haze again.

The reporting behind this view

• 139Delhi's average air quality index on Monday, before the forecast slide to 'poor'
• 370farm fires in Madhya Pradesh since 15 September, slightly more than Punjab's 368
• 3.54 lakhcrop residue machines supplied to states, with spending of funds called slow