Delhi Air Pollution: CPCB Taskforce Identifies 21 Pollution Hotspots, Seeks Focussed Actions

New Delhi: A Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) taskforce has identified 21 hotspots of high pollution levels in Delhi-NCR and directed the respective area municipal corporations to take “focussed actions” to mitigate the effects. The taskforce has also asked authorities to carry out inspection in Loni Bhopura, in Ghaziabad, from where repeated complaints of violations of norms associated with pollution-causing activities have been received, according to minutes of a meeting of the taskforce held in Delhi Tuesday.

The taskforce has identified 15 hotspots in Delhi. They are: Anand Vihar, Bawana, CRRI Mathura Road, DTU, Dr. Karni Singh Shooting Range, Dwarka-Sector 8, Jahangirpuri, Mundaka, NSIT Dwarka, Narela, Okhla Phase-2, R K Puram, Rohini, Shadipur, Wazirpur. Many of the hotspots are already experiencing severe pollution levels.

In NCR areas outside Delhi, six hotspots have been identified. They are: Sector-16A in Faridabad, Vikas Sadan in Gurgaon, Vasundhara in Ghaziabad, Knowledge Park-III in Greater Noida, Sector-125 in Noida and RIICO Industrial Area-III in Bhiwadi.

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Hotspots are areas recording high pollution levels either due to violation of norms or due to the meteorological conditions there. The taskforce said municipal corporations of Delhi and adjacent areas (Noida, Ghaziabad, Faridabad and Gurgaon) and other agencies to take “focussed actions in the hotspot areas”

It also asked all agencies to ensure “effective implementation of actions”.

The taskforce, comprising members of India Meteorological Department, Delhi Pollution Control Board and Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board, reviewed the status of ambient air quality of the national capital. In the meeting, the taskforce members were apprised about the deteriorating air quality in Delhi-NCR.

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The CPCB urged the members to bring the air quality into the poor category from the very poor range. Delhi has been battling alarming levels of pollution for nearly two months with the air quality hovering between “very poor” and “severe”, slipping into “poor” on better days.

NDTV – Dettol Banega Swachh India campaign lends support to the Government of India’s Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM). Helmed by Campaign Ambassador Amitabh Bachchan, the campaign aims to spread awareness about hygiene and sanitation, the importance of building toilets and making India open defecation free (ODF) by October 2019, a target set by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, when he launched Swachh Bharat Abhiyan in 2014. Over the years, the campaign has widened its scope to cover issues like air pollution, waste management, plastic ban, manual scavenging and menstrual hygiene. The campaign has also focused extensively on marine pollution, clean Ganga Project and rejuvenation of Yamuna, two of India’s major river bodies.