9,845 violated pollution laws this year

New Delhi, September 26

The Delhi Pollution Control Committee’s 83 home guard volunteers (environmental marshals) deployed in wards of three municipal corporations have reported 9,845 violation of pollution laws in the capital since January this year.

Actions against 2,656 polluting units have been taken since January, said an official after a review meeting by Environment and Forests Minister Imran Hussain on progress and steps being taken for prevention, control and mitigation of air pollution in Delhi-NCR.

Similarly, the three municipal corporations — SDMC, EDMC, NDMC — have taken actions against 10,196 units operating illegally in Delhi’s non-conforming areas.

In the meeting attended by top officials of the government, civic and traffic agencies, Hussain directed all departments/ agencies in the capital to be ready with anti-pollution measures ahead of the peak pollution season.

All the stakeholder departmental officers have been told to intensify their actions as per the various categories of Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) notified upon the directions of the Supreme Court to tackle severe air pollution the city sees during the winter combat air pollution in Delhi-NCR.

“Measures for prevention and control of road dust and other fugitive emissions have to be put in place. Pollution from construction and demolition activities as well as pollutants from vehicles are another problem that needs to be tackled,” he said.

He directed that development agencies should ensure that all construction sites should adhere to Construction and Demolition Waste Rules 2016 to avoid any dust emission from construction activities.

“No construction material should be kept open and regular sprinkling of water at all construction sites must be done. All high rise building should have the arrangement of water sprinkling for dust suppression. Strict action against the violators should immediately be initiated by the respective authority."

He also directed the transport authorities/ traffic police to deploy more staff so that strict action should be taken on the overloaded vehicles and vehicles carrying uncovered construction material. The minister stressed the need to stop the entry of non destined vehicles in Delhi as eastern and western peripheral expressways have become operational.

The municipal corporations were also directed to explore feasibility of water sprinkling on inner lanes of colony before sweeping as lot of dust is emanated from manual sweeping of roads. PWD has been directed to increase the deployment of more mechanical sweeping machines on over 60 feet roads and with the arrangement of water sprinkling on roads. — TNS