Panchkula residents flout norms too

Tribune News Service

Panchkula, November 13

Pollution levels in Panchkula have escalated by over 100 points, a day after Diwali. The air quality has gone from moderate to poor, which has led to breathing discomfort for people as residents resorted to bursting firecrackers through the night.

City residents continued bursting fire crackers throughout Sunday night, while some even burst crackers early Monday morning as well. As such, the city’s AQI was recorded at 202 on Monday afternoon, which later escalated to 230 by Monday evening, as recorded at the Haryana State Pollution Control Board’s Sector 6 office.

Despite reports of crop residue burning by farmers during the ongoing harvesting season that began in mid-October, the AQI (air quality index) in the area has remained in the moderate range (between 100 and 200 index points). But the district’s measuring station at Sector 6 recorded the AQI shooting up to 230 points on Monday.

Admn’s restrictions blown to the wind

Before the festive season began, the district administration gave a window of two hours (from 8 pm to 10 pm) to burst fire crackers on Diwali. But as a matter of fact, the bursting of crackers intensified at 10 pm and continued until 2 am on Monday. No reports have been accessed for the registration of FIRs for violations of restrictions until the filing of this copy.

Cracker sellers leave behind heaps of garbage

While vendors who were permitted to sell firecrackers at the temporary stalls set up behind the HAFED corporate office at Sector-5 Panchkula were removed by Monday morning, they left behind huge piles of garbage instead. The area otherwise houses the local grain market. But it came off as a garbage dumping site as cracker waste, cardboard boxes, flex, posters and polythene covers, among others, were found strewn at the site on Monday.

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