“Can’t Tolerate Garbage Burning”: Top Court Panel On Delhi Pollution

New Delhi: Supreme Court-appointed Environment Pollution Control Authority Chairperson Bhure Lal Saturday said he visited various pollution hotspots in Delhi and found rampant illegal polluting activities especially garbage burning taking place in these areas. Hotspots are vulnerable areas where pollution is very high due to polluting activities. Mr Lal visited Mundka where he saw several garbage burning instances. “The garbage mainly consisted of rubber and plastic waste which is carcinogenic. I held meetings with industrial associations and made our stand clear that we would not tolerate garbage burning at any cost,” he told PTI.

Also Read: ‘Pollution’s Dangers Can Be Passed On To Next Generation’, Finds A Study

Mr Lal said he got it in writing from industries that they would stop burning garbage in open and would sprinkle water to mitigate pollution effects. “I told them that a penalty of Rs. 50,000 would be imposed for burning garbage in the open and if they are caught for a second time then their industrial unit would be shut,” he added.

He also met with villagers who complained that pollution has led to breathing issues and has even caused cancer to many of them. He was accompanied by MCD and DDA officials and visited Nangoi and Tikri with them. Mr Lal would be conducting an inspection of Bawana and Narela Monday and would be visiting Anand Vihar Tuesday.

Also Read: Air Pollution – The Invisible Killer; Food – The Visible Healer

The Environment Pollution Control Authority Friday said they are seriously considering banning industrial, construction and demolition activities at major pollution hotspots in Delhi-NCR when air quality levels reach ‘severe’ category.

The Central Pollution Control Board-led task force on November 22 recommended to the EPCA that industrial, construction and demolition activities should be banned in major hotspot areas when air quality levels reach ‘severe’ category.

The taskforce has identified 15 pollution 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.

In 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. Delhi has been battling alarming levels of pollution for nearly two months with the air quality hovering between “very poor” and “severe”, and slipping into “poor” on better days.

Also Read: Air Pollution: Delhi Hospitals See Rise In Respiratory Complications

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.