Initate ‘Dust-free Delhi drive’: L-G to agencies
Lieutenant-Governor (L-G) VK Saxena, at a meeting last week to review air pollution in the city, told various civic agencies to undertake a ‘Dust-free Delhi drive’ over seven-10 days.
‘To mitigate air pollution’
Rains have been predicted during the first week of October and the exercise of clearing the dust will serve many purposes. While on the one hand, it will mitigate air pollution in the city immediately, on the other hand, it will ensure that when rains return, there is less waterlogging and mud and silt on the roads. — A Municipal Corporation official
Raj Niwas officials said on Monday that Saxena has asked the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), Public Works Department (PWD), New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC), Irrigation and Flood Control Department (I&FCD) and the Delhi Jal Board to undertake the exercise over the next week or 10 days. He has also asked for the same to be converted into a year-long campaign.
Pollution caused by road dust is one of the two major contributors to air pollution in Delhi, and with the rains having stopped for the past three-four days, dried up mud and silt accumulated on roads is flying high in the environment, causing major air pollution, they said.
An official said, “Dilapidated unrepaired roads, back-flowing sewer lines and un-silted drains has resulted in a huge amount of mud, silt getting deposited on roads and footpaths. This mud and silt, is wet till now due to continuous rains, however, it is drying up and flying due to moving traffic.”
The L-G has advised the road-owning agencies, primarily MCD and PWD, to clean the roads of the dust and not to leave it accumulated on the roads and transport it to the designated dumping sites.
Similarly, agencies responsible for cleaning drains and sewer lines, MCD, I&FCD and DJB, have been told to coordinate and get the silt and mud picked up and disposed of.
Saxena has emphasised that even if it rains, the exercise of removing the wet mud and silt from the roads should be continued to ensure that these do not flow into drains and sewer lines, in the process choking them.
The departments and agencies have been asked to immediately deploy teams and record the works being undertaken through “before and after” pictures and videos.
The status of ongoing works will be regularly provided to the L-G Secretariat and Saxena will review the status after the completion of the first phase of the “Dust-free Delhi exercise”.
Meanwhile the AAP, in its response, said, “This is very strange that on this very matter the Minister of Urban Development Saurabh Bharadwaj had called all departments’ meeting. All head of departments and the Chief Secretary (CS) were invited to the meeting. However, the meeting could not be held due to the unavailability of the CS.”
The AAP said the minister had sent photographs in his meeting note along with the GPS locations where silt was deposited.
“In the same meeting note, the minister had told the HODs that right now the silt was wet due to the rains, but as soon as the rains stop, the silt will dry up and start adding to the dust pollution. Therefore, department HODs were asked to prepare a plan to remove this silt in the next two weeks,” AAP in its statement said.
“It is unfortunate that the L-G saab is trying to use such tactics to claim credit,” it added.
