All Potholes In Delhi-NCR To Be Filled In 72 Hours To Curb Pollution: Minister

All potholes should be repaired in Delhi-National Capital Region (NCR) within 72 hours, Delhi's Environment Minister Manjinder Singh Sirsa announced today as the region finds innovative ways to fight air pollution. Potholes kick up a lot of dust and also slows down traffic, leading to more fuel burn and wastage. The cumulative effect is huge.

He also said any industrial unit in Delhi that has been adding to pollution should ensure they stick to compliance within 20 days, or else they will not be allowed to operate, and fined too.

The Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) - a structured framework designed to combat air quality deterioration - is at level two in Delhi; the highest is GRAP-4 where many activities are restricted.

The public works department (PWD) will mend the potholes, while the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) will send sprinklers at construction and demolition sites.

Chief Minister Rekha Gupta will form a committee with experts and scientists as members, and they will recommend steps to fight pollution from time to time at meetings chaired by her.

"I thank the people for giving such a huge mandate to us. It's a historical win for us... The people of Delhi believe in development, which has been proven today," the minister said.

Other key announcements that he made include installation of water sprinklers in NCR areas like Faridabad, Gurugram and Ghaziabad.

For the long term, he asked local bodies to focus on planting more trees with people's participation. All parks which are barren will be checked in order to introduce green cover, the minister added.

More Decisions

Owners of Bharat Stage 2 and Stage 3 vehicles must go for the mandatory 'pollution under control (PUC)' test. Trucks with engines below  BS-4 cannot be used; they will be seized if caught running in Delhi-NCR.

The Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) will issue challans today itself to polluting units, Sirsa said. Any work that leads to dust formation such as road repair and large-scale construction should be done only after taking permission from the government.

The MCD will hire at least 1,000 vacuum-based litter pickers within 45 days, according to a direction by the chief minister, Sirsa said.

He faulted the previous Congress and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) governments for not doing enough to reduce pollution.

"Odd-even [traffic plan] was a drama as it did not reduce pollution," the environment minister said.

"Sonia Gandhi would not have needed to write an article if her governments had done their work. She should explain how many articles she wrote in 15 years when her party was in power for 12 of those years, along with AAP," Sirsa said, alleging a political motive in the Opposition's attack on the Delhi government.

Yesterday, the Delhi environment department called a high-level meeting under the leadership of the chief minister to review a report by The Energy and Resource Institute (TERI) on microplastics and frothing in the Yamuna river.