Delhi air pollution: NGT sends notice to the Delhi Police Chief and traffic police commissioner

The Delhi Police chief and the special commissioner of traffic management have been summoned to respond by the National Green Tribunal (NGT) regarding the measures implemented to lessen vehicle-related air pollution and parking issues.

Additionally, it stated that the various phases of the anti-pollution Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) should be used in a methodical manner. As part of the tribunal’s investigation into the National Capital Region’s (NCR) poor air quality, many GRAP stages have to be activated.

“Now that winter has arrived, 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,” stated Justice Prakash Shrivastava, the chairperson of the National Green Tribunal, in an order dated October 24. The panel, which was made up of expert member A Senthil Vel and judicial member Justice Arun Kumar Tyagi, cited an October 23 report from the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM).

The GRAP schedule was “comprehensively reviewed,” according to the study, and Stage I of GRAP was initiated when the national capital’s average AQI stayed above 200 for a “sufficiently long duration.” “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,” the tribunal said, expressing its displeasure.

It further stated, “We think that objective standards must be used and that a clear procedure should be used to invoke the various GRAP stages.” According to the NGT, one of the main causes of air pollution is car pollution, and the police are in charge of managing traffic, dealing with parking concerns, and enforcing the law against unapproved and outdated vehicles.

The police commissioner and the special commissioner of traffic management were later added as parties or respondents by the tribunal. The panel stated, “Let notices be issued to the newly added respondents to file their responses by way of affidavit, disclosing the steps taken at ground level to mitigate the contributing air pollution factors related to vehicular movements and parking.” In order to guarantee their efficient operation at the ground level, it mandated that the field personnel and teams sent by the Delhi government and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) to check infractions be reinforced and overseen by qualified officers.

The Delhi government, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), and the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) were directed by the tribunal to extensively promote their mobile applications for checking pollution. Additionally, a reply affidavit revealing the current and planned ambient air quality monitoring stations in the NCR was filed by the Union Ministry of Environment, Forests, and Climate Change (MoEF&CC).

There isn’t a planned ambient air quality monitoring station in Delhi, it stated. The CAQM was ordered by the tribunal to disclose the actions done between January and September 2024 to prevent a decline in air quality during the winter.

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