Delhi air pollution: NGT notice to top cop, traffic police commissioner
The NGT has said that vehicular pollution significantly contributes to air pollution and that the police are responsible for traffic control.
The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has asked the Delhi Police chief and the special commissioner of traffic management to respond about the steps taken to reduce air pollution from vehicles and parking problems.
It also said that a clear process should be followed to apply different stages of the anti-pollution Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP).
The tribunal was looking into the problem of poor air quality in the National Capital Region (NCR), necessitating the activation of different stages of GRAP.
The NGT chairperson Justice Prakash Shrivastava, in an order on October 24, said, “Now, the winter has started, and we find that the Air Quality Index (AQI) on October 23 in Delhi was 364 in the very poor category, which reflects that there is a lapse on the part of the authorities in preventing the dip in the air quality in NCR.”
The bench, consisting of judicial member Justice Arun Kumar Tyagi and expert member A Senthil Vel, referenced a report from the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) dated October 23.
The report said that the GRAP schedule was “comprehensively reviewed” and that Stage I of GRAP was activated when the average AQI in the national capital remained above 200 for a “sufficiently long duration.”
Expressing its dissatisfaction, the tribunal remarked, “It is not disclosed as to the average number of days taken to invoke Stage I, nor is it specified what duration is considered to be sufficiently long.”
“We believe that objective criteria must be applied, and a transparent process should be adopted for invoking the different stages of GRAP,” it added.
The NGT observed that vehicular pollution was one of the major contributors to air pollution and that the responsibility for controlling traffic, addressing parking issues, and enforcing the ban on unauthorised and old vehicles lies with the police.
The tribunal subsequently added the police commissioner and the special commissioner of traffic management as parties or respondents.
“Let notices be issued to the newly added respondents to file their responses by way of affidavit, disclosing the steps taken at the ground level to mitigate the contributing air pollution factors related to vehicular movements and parking,” the tribunal said.
It directed that the field staff and teams deployed by the Delhi government and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) to check violations should be strengthened and monitored by competent officers to ensure their effective operation at the ground level.
The tribunal instructed the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), Delhi government, and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) to widely publicise their mobile applications for checking pollution.
“The Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) has also filed a reply affidavit disclosing the existing ambient air quality monitoring stations in the NCR and the proposed stations. As far as Delhi is concerned, there is no proposed ambient air quality monitoring station,” it said
The tribunal directed the CAQM to reveal the steps taken from January to September 2024 to ensure that air quality does not deteriorate in the winter months.
The matter has been scheduled for further proceedings on November 5.
With PTI inputs
