Record pollution in Delhi, 18 times over Milan: pale sunshine and closed schools

Like every year, after months of ignoring the causes of the problem, politicians are belatedly running for cover. Today, a protocol has been activated, which comes into force with increasing force depending on pollution levels. According to the directives, most schools have been closed, construction sites have been stopped and many of the old trucks that clog the arteries connecting Delhi to the surrounding regions every night have been idle. The elderly and those suffering from respiratory diseases have been advised against venturing out.

Common sense moves, but insufficient and belated, which seem designed above all to give the impression that the problem is being addressed. With the aggravating factor of affecting the most vulnerable strata of the population - the labourers of the homeless paid by the day at the construction sites; the children locked up at home to theoretically do distance learning - without appreciably improving the situation.

The reasons behind the seasonal collapse of Delhi's air quality are well known. Every autumn, in three states with a strong agricultural vocation bordering the capital - Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh - the remains of the freshly harvested crops are set on fire.

It is mostly rice, preferred to other crops more suited to the climate and soil of northern India, because it is bought at a guaranteed price by the state. The problem is that in many of the grain-growing areas, water consumption has not been sustainable for years, which is why local governments impose sowing calendars that serve to reduce water consumption, but end up compressing the time, pushing the burning of straw.

A perverse game of incentives, both local and national, that create addiction and remedy one problem, generating another in a chain that never seems to end. In this context, with almost no precipitation, the seasonal drop in temperatures imprisons the fumes and prevents them from dispersing at high altitudes. The wind does the rest, scattering them all over the Indo-Gangetic plain, including Delhi.

According to Safar, a government agency, agricultural fires are currently contributing a good 40 per cent of the city's pollution. On Sunday alone, satellites of the Consortium for Research on Agroecosystem Monitoring and Modeling from Space (Creams) detected 1,334 of them in six states of the country.

Camp fires are a double curse for Delhi: environmental and political. Environmental, because it is estimated that an average of 80 people die every day in the Indian capital due to air pollution. Political, because by involving administrations other than the city's - such as the local administrations of neighbouring states, as well as the central government - this crisis creates a situation that facilitates the shifting of responsibilities between those who incentivise agricultural fires, those who do not limit car use, and those who do not promote less polluting energy policies than the current ones.

In fact, the problem of unbreathable air is only partly a seasonal one, because peaks such as the one we are experiencing nowadays are added to a picture that is never favourable in itself. The only exception is the monsoon season, when the rains break down the dust generated by vehicular traffic, the many construction sites scattered around the city, dusty, unmaintained roads and the 11 coal-fired power plants that power - and suffocate - the Indian capital.