MCDs challan 6400 people, collect Rs 6.17cr fine for air pollution

The civic agencies in the capital have prosecuted nearly 6,400 violators for causing air pollution and recovered a fine of Rs6.17 crores from July 2016 to 2017, revealed the data released by the three Municipal Corporations (MCDs) on Tuesday.

In their stringent action against the people who are not adhering to the norms despite repeated warnings, the North MCD issued 1,194 challans to construction sites and 361 challans for burning of leaves, while the South MCD has issued 1,418 and 475 challans, respectively.

In east Delhi, the MCD issued 630 challans for burning leaves and 2,303 for prevalent air pollution at construction sites.

“The number of challans have increased in the last two months as earlier, the civic agencies were busy in improving the sanitation conditions in their jurisdictions for the last few months. Taking advantage of the lean period, the violations have increased manifold. As a result we again cracked down heavily on violators,” said senior officials from the department of environment management services, EDMC.

The National Green Tribunal (NGT) had directed all land owning agencies in Delhi to impose a fine of Rs5,000 on persons found burning waste in the open and Rs5 lakh fine on the owners/builders, who are found violating dust control measures.

Apart from this, the civic agencies have also taken action against the people stacking construction material and running illegal industries in the city. “The North Corporation alone has issued 686 notices and sealed 154 industries operating in various areas. The action has been taken after issuing the advisory to the defaulters,” said a senior official from the North Corporation.

The purpose of the drive is to keep the environment pollution free and not challan people unnecessarily, said Praveen Gupta, commissioner, North Corporation.

“Before challaning violators, the agency is creating infrastructure facilities for public, simultaneously. Apart from carrying out awareness drives on a large scale, we are placing dustbins, opening parking lots and toilets for public use. Still some people don’t want to co-operate,” said Gupta. The agency has imposed 26,000 sanitation challans in its jurisdiction in the last one year.

The South MCD issued 905 challans to people who parked their old vehicles on roadsides for long time. “These vehicles have been restricting the cleaning of roads and also become nuisance for residents living in neighbourhood,” said an SDMC official.