‘Red Light On, Gaadi Off’, Delhi Government’s Campaign To Reduce Vehicular Emissions

New Delhi: The Delhi government kicked off its month-long ‘Red Light On, Gaadi Off’ campaign across 100 crossings in the city on Monday (October 18) to reduce vehicular emissions. Delhi Environment Minister Gopal Rai visited the ITO crossing and appealed to the public to extend their support to make this fight against pollution a success. Vehicular emissions and dust are significant contributors to the air pollution of any city, the minister said.

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To reduce vehicular pollution, the Delhi government has started a ‘Red Light On, Gaadi Off’ campaign from today (Monday). Data by the Petroleum Conservation Research Association (PCRA) shows that if people follow the exercise of switching off engines at traffic signals, pollution can be cut down by 13-20 per cent, Mr Rai said.

“This is a public campaign. We all will have to fight together to beat pollution. I appeal to the public to follow the campaign,” he added.

Mr Rai said pollution levels were within safe limits in September. The spike in pollution levels in winters is due to the change in weather and the cases of stubble burning in neighbouring states, the Delhi environment minister added.

We cannot do anything about stubble burning in neighbouring states. So our effort is to reduce vehicular and dust pollution in Delhi through the ‘Red Light On, Gaadi Off’ campaign and anti-dust drives, he said.

Also Read: Estimated 57,000 Premature Deaths In Delhi Last Year Can Be Attributed To Air Pollution: Greenpeace

Mr Rai said that he had a meeting with Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav which was attended by environment ministers of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan as well.

We had raised our concerns about stubble burning in the meeting. The other state governments did not shoulder their responsibilities properly and that’s why stubble burning is happening, Mr Rai alleged.

The ‘Red Light On, Gaadi Off’ campaign will continue for a month till November 18. As many as 2,500 civil defence volunteers will be deployed in two shifts of 8 am to 2 pm and 2 pm to 8 pm across 100 traffic junctions in the city for the campaign. According to officials, these civil defence volunteers will hand out pamphlets carrying information on Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s three appeals to the public. To help fight the pollution in Delhi, CM Kejriwal had last week appealed to the people to actively participate in the campaign, avoid using their cars at least one day a week, and report any case of violation of pollution norms on the Green Delhi app.

Also Read: India Needs To Make Its Air Quality Norms More Stringent, Say Experts After New WHO Guidelines

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

NDTV – Dettol have been working towards a clean and healthy India since 2014 via Banega Swachh India initiative, which is helmed by Campaign Ambassador Amitabh Bachchan. The campaign aims to highlight the inter-dependency of humans and the environment, and of humans on one another with the focus on One Health, One Planet, One Future – Leaving No One Behind. It stresses on the need to take care of, and consider, everyone’s health in India – especially vulnerable communities – the LGBTQ population, indigenous people, India’s different tribes, ethnic and linguistic minorities, people with disabilities, migrants, geographically remote populations, gender and sexual minorities. In wake of the current COVID-19 pandemic, the need for WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) is reaffirmed as handwashing is one of the ways to prevent Coronavirus infection and other diseases. The campaign will continue to raise awareness on the same along with focussing on the importance of nutrition and healthcare for women and children, fight malnutrition, mental wellbeing, self care, science and health, adolescent health & gender awareness. Along with the health of people, the campaign has realised the need to also take care of the health of the eco-system. Our environment is fragile due to human activity,  that is not only over-exploiting available resources, but also generating immense pollution as a result of using and extracting those resources. The imbalance has also led to immense biodiversity loss that has caused one of the biggest threats to human survival – climate change. It has now been described as a “code red for humanity.” The campaign will continue to cover issues like air pollution, waste management, plastic ban, manual scavenging and sanitation workers and menstrual hygiene. Banega Swasth India will also be taking forward the dream of Swasth Bharat, the campaign feels that only a Swachh or clean India where toilets are used and open defecation free (ODF) status achieved as part of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014, can eradicate diseases like diahorrea and the country can become a Swasth or healthy India.