On the night of 12th November, temperatures dipped across Sonipat. The air began to smell distinctly like smoke, and students witnessed Residence Hall room windows fogging up. The smog set off smoke alarms on multiple floors in Residence Halls 6 and 7 (RH-6 and RH-7) on the North Campus. By the following morning, Sonipat’s Air Quality Index (AQI), had spiked from 237 to 356, accompanied by drastically reduced visibility.
To combat the annual winter smog and air pollution, Ashoka deploys sprinklers and tree-washing when AQI levels hit greater or equal to 450. Trees naturally trap particulate matter (PM) such as dust, soot, and smoke. When trees are washed, this accumulated debris is removed, allowing the trees to function more effectively as air filters.
With air quality on campus rapidly deteriorating, Bhaskar Mishra, Vice-President, Special Projects sent an email informing the student body that the sprinklers would be turned on from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. on 13th November. Since then, sprinklers have been turned on six times for a total duration of twenty-one hours.
“Both of these are measures (tree washing and sprinklers) that will provide some benefits but they will only work locally, in the region they are deployed. It is not the case that you put a sprinkler here, and that will help the Campus in a global sense,” Dr. Gautam Menon, Dean, Research and Professor of Physics and Biology, tells The Edict.
Breathing in this “poison” air can be equivalent to smoking 50 cigarettes a day and is reported to cut short lifespans by up to 12 years. Rajat Lal* (UG’27) understands this better than most. He has allergic rhinitis and intermittent asthma. Last year, he had to deal with smog by “taking necessary precautions” like carrying an inhaler and medication. When the sprinklers and treewashing began, Lal noticed that his breathing improved, and said that he “never experienced breathing difficulties” like he had in other places.
Ashoka employs the sprinklers on the four corners of all Residence Halls, and academic building terraces.
Digging into Ashoka's Sprinkler Infrastructure
The university uses Rainbird Y54007 Pop-up Sprinklers with an adjustable automatic nozzle (40°- 360°) as one of the main mechanisms to combat smog. Sushant Singh, Deputy Manager of Maintenance and Services, explains, "The rotation setting of the sprinkler is 180 degrees [Part-circle] towards the outer side of every building."
In a conversation with The Edict, Balbir Singh Jangra, Associate Director, Maintenance mentions that the sprinkler "does not use recycled water from sewage treatment plants (STPs).” Rather, the water used in the overhead sprinklers comes from the Haryana Shehri Vikas Pradhikaran (HSVP, formerly HUDA) supply. It is then treated in the water treatment plant (WTP) beside Residence Hall-5 (RH-5).
In addition to its main purpose of generating safe and potable drinking water for usage on campus, the HUDA supply water treated in the WTP is also used in the overhead sprinkler.
Prashant Nannavare, Assistant Director of Horticulture at the university highlights that the recycled water has been in use for irrigation purposes and maintains thirteen acres of green spaces on campus. Ashoka currently houses three sewage treatment plants with a combined capacity of generating 710 kilolitres per day (kLD) of recycled water. According to Bhaskar Mishra, the water is regulated through a valve. The sprinkler nozzles open and water is ejected when the valves are switched on.
Other measures deployed by the administration to combat smog include the installation of air purifiers in RH’s student commons, library, dining area, infirmary and gym area in the old campus and the dining area, gym and 8th-floor washing area in the north campus.
The university houses approximately 72 overhead sprinklers, Mishra says. These sprinklers have a flow rate between 0.73- 9.63 gallons/per minute (2.76-36.6 litres/per minute) each. While a decent amount of water from the sprinklers recharges the groundwater through the 15 rainwater harvesting pits on campus, some part of the water from the sprinklers inevitably goes down the drain.
Dr. Meghna Agarwala, Assistant Professor of Environmental Science tells The Edict that despite the water waste, sprinklers are an effective solution: “In this small region, at least we save ourselves a little bit with [sprinklers].”
This approach starkly contrasts the goals and effects of a policy pushed by the Haryana Government in 2009 to prevent the depletion of groundwater called the ‘Preservation of Subsoil Act’. The Act intends to preserve groundwater levels but has contributed to worsening the air quality in Haryana and Delhi-NCR in the last decade, write, Agrawala, Dr. Aparajita Dasgupta, Associate Professor of Economics at Ashoka University and Dr. Shampa Bhattacharjee, Associate Professor at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences in Shiv Nadar University.
Preservation of Subsoil Act
Rice, which forms the majority of agricultural produce in Punjab and Haryana, is a water-intensive crop. The rise in its cultivation following the Green Revolution led to a depletion of groundwater levels in several districts in Haryana. The government responded to this crisis by passing the ‘Haryana Preservation of Subsoil Water Act, 2009’, which bans paddy transplantation before mid-June to preserve groundwater, allowing monsoon rains to naturally replenish groundwater levels.
This delays the agricultural timeline, leaving farmers with a shorter window to prepare for the cultivation of the next crop (typically wheat), post-harvest season. The short time frame “incentivises the farmers to clear off the land quickly by burning the field,” says Dasgupta in an interview with The Edict. As a result, crop burnings have been pushed from mid-October to November exacerbating air pollution due to the increased temperature inversion in the colder weather.
In a working paper titled, “Political Cycle in Crop Residue Burning: Evidence from India” Agarwala, Dasgupta and Bhattacharjee also find that the relaxed monitoring of crop residue burning by the government for political gain also exacerbates the smog. “Crop pressure burning increases six months before a state election, and that amount of increase is directly proportionate to how small the margin of victory is,” Agarwala tells The Edict.
She adds, "Farmers have small profit margins, and it costs them time and money to not burn and wait for a reaper to clear the residue." Farmers may be considered an important political lobby because “the general public is a fragmented electoral constituency, but the farmer is a united electoral constituency.” Incentivising farmers to not burn may be an important way forward, she says.
This rise in crop residue burnings, along with local pollutants such as vehicular emissions and wind speed are major contributors to the spike in air pollution in Haryana and Delhi-NCR from November to January.
The Human Cost
While the sprinklers and tree washing have improved air quality on Campus, there is a disparity in the experience of smog between students and workers.
The Edict spoke to workers on campus after smog levels suddenly shot up on 13th November. According to an email from the Vice-Chancellor’s Office, masks were only provided for free to workers from 20th November, after the smog had intensified and AQI levels consistently reached hazardous levels. Many workers claim that no protection in the form of masks, advisory or any other equivalent was offered to them before the implementation of this free mask drive by the administration. However, a few workers in The Hideout Cafe (formerly TKS) pointed out that they were already provided free masks by their supervisor before this drive began.
A housekeeping staff at RH-7 tells The Edict about a greater probability of falling sick and raises concerns about visibility when commuting but accepts smog as a fact of life.
Another member of housekeeping staff stationed at RH-4 mentions that workers are required to come to campus during periods of excessive smog. She struggled to commute to campus by bike on the morning of 13th November due to poor visibility. “I have young kids at home, what if something happened to me? I have been seeing a road accident every two to three days since the smog began.” In a follow-up interview, she confirmed that she was provided with two free N-95 masks after 20th November.
This year, the much looked forward to Ashoka Basketball Association (ABA) tournament was indefinitely postponed due to the smog. Kushagra Agarwal (YIF’25), a footballer, tells The Edict that his “eyes burn while playing.”
Krrish Jain (UG’28) believes that the usage of sprinklers is one of the ways to reduce pollution. “If there's responsible use of sprinklers, maybe in areas where there is a high amount of pollution, that could be useful,” he said.
Lal remains concerned about the state of the new campus. He says that there are sprinklers there, but the dust constantly covering the floors could be cause for extra concern when the air quality is low. Kshitiz Pratap Shah (ASP’25) suggests the use of air purifiers strategically located on certain corners of every Residence Hall floor to reduce the impact of smog in cramped hallways.
Many students choose to purchase air purifiers for their rooms, in addition to the ones already provided in the common areas. This year, Lal will do the same, as he “did feel a sense of heaviness from coming out (of the room) at times.” Shah, a student from Nepal has been experiencing aggravated breathing and visibility issues during smog week for the past few years. He says, “I never felt it (air purifiers) was an option for me”. As an international student, these purifiers are a “sizable expense” and it would be unreasonable for him to use it for a few weeks every year and transport it back to his home country.
The inability of some students to buy an air purifier due to financial and geographical constraints speaks to the larger inequalities that underline pollution-associated health concerns. As Menon puts it, [air pollution] is a problem created by the upper middle class, but it is the economically disadvantaged who bear its brunt. He hopes for extensive tree cover during further campus expansions— as and when they occur— to combat pollution.
Mishra adds that apart from the measures mentioned in the VP Operations emails, the Ashoka administration is planting more trees and using eco-friendly CNG shuttles. The shuttle staff say that they are instructed to not overtake vehicles and not change lanes, are limited to driving below the speed of 40 kilometres per hour (km/h) during the day and are further restricted to 20 to 30 km/h in the night. Special yellow fog lights provided to the shuttle greatly aid their travel, they conclude.
The attitude of the people in Delhi is “very apathetic” towards the smog, say Agarwal and Jain, both students who have lived in Delhi. Menon “does not understand” how people do not care more about this phenomenon that is affecting their health in adverse ways.
The only way for the government to take notice and help curb the smog and its effects is “if the public says that we really, really care about the pollution,” Agarwala concludes.
Exacerbated winter pollution is a region-specific problem that transcends political boundaries, and it requires political cooperation between nations. As Menon says, the “only real solution is a global solution.”
*A pseudonym has been provided to preserve the anonymity of the source.
(With inputs from Aditya Roy)
(Edited by Srijana Siri, Keerthana Panchanathan and Aditya Roy)
Comments