New Delhi: Both the Central and the State governments are taking steps to bring down pollution levels in Delhi this winter.
Delhi Environment Minister Gopal Rai on Thursday inaugurated a ‘green war room’ at the Delhi Secretariat to monitor pollution levels in the city.
He said a 10-member team has been set up to monitor the levels of primary pollutants, measures taken to curb pollution and status of complaints received through Green Delhi mobile application.
Satellite data related to farm fires in the neighbouring states will also be analysed in the green war room.
There are different agencies working to deal with the problem of air pollution in Delhi. The green war room has been set up to coordinate their efforts, Rai said.
He said the control room will work towards ensuring stricter enforcement of guidelines to check dust pollution at construction and demolition sites, ready-mix concrete plants, and garbage burning.
This anti-dust campaign will continue in mission mode till October 15 and strict action will be taken against the violators, he said.
The Minister said the pollution levels at 13 hotspots in the city and the steps taken to bring them down will also be monitored via the green war room. He added that daily reports on the number of complaints received and grievances redressed will be sent to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.
Recently, Principal Secretary to Prime Minister P K Mishra chaired the meeting of the High Level Taskforce constituted to improvethe air quality in National Capital Region of Delhi. Chief Secretaries of Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, Secretaries of different department/Ministries of the Central government including M/o of Environment, Forest & Climate Change, Agriculture, Road, Petroleum andCentral Pollution Control Board were present in the meeting.
Principal Secretary emphasised that the meeting was called well in advance before the onset of harvesting and winter season to ensure proper precautionary and preventive measures to combat the causes of air pollution are taken well in time.
A review of the main sources of air pollution, measures taken and the progress made by the State Governments and various Ministries was carried out. It was noted that the incidence of stubble burning has reduced by more than 50 per cent in last two years and the number of Good AQI days have gone up.
The efforts and plan made by the States of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh for control of crop residue burning were examined in detail, including ground level deployment and availability of machinery for in-situ management of crop residue.
It was observed that after recent inclusion of residue based power /fuel plants under priority sector lending by Reserve Bank of India, both State and Central Governments should jointly work out action plans for rapid deployment of such units. Measures related to diversification of crop and strengthening of supply chains were also discussed.
Mishra highlighted the importance of effective implementation of the existing in-situ management of crop residue scheme of Ministry of Agriculture by the States, and emphasized that State governments should ensure that the new machinery to be deployed in the current year should reach the farmers before the start of the harvesting season. Ministry of Agriculture was directed to provide all necessary support in this regard.