Over a year after the Supreme Court ordered the Centre and the governments of the NCR States to take stringent measures to curb air pollution, the Environment Pollution Control Authority (EPCA) has found the implementation of the directives to be lax.
According to its report on Monday, the Supreme Court-appointed EPCA said there was a “need for short-term emergency action and strict enforcement” of the Apex Court’s directions.
This comes at a time when Delhi is facing the worst smog episode in almost two decades, with consistently hazardous pollution levels being recorded for a week.
“In many cases, actions are lax and do not recognise the urgency of toxic air pollution, particularly in winter months,” said the report.
Bypassing Delhi
For instance, the Supreme Court had on October 9, 2015 ordered Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Rajasthan to divert commercial vehicles that were just passing through Delhi but were not destined for the Capital.
As per the EPCA report, Haryana diverted about six lakh vehicles between January 21 and April 25 by setting up 13 check-posts. Uttar Pradesh managed to divert only 3,278 vehicles till April 11. Both these States “must increase enforcement”, said the EPCA.
The Supreme Court had also ordered the Delhi government to levy an environment compensation charge (ECC) on commercial vehicles entering the city in order to discourage them from just passing through. While the ECC is being collected, the government is yet to use the entire fund.
Green charge
As of October 28, over Rs.440 crore has been collected in ECC, but the Delhi Transport Department had only come up with plans to use less than 30 per cent of the fund. The Transport Department had already given Rs.93 lakh to the South Delhi Municipal Corporation, which is the nodal agency for toll collection. Another Rs.120 crore would be sanctioned for a project to install radio frequency identification (RFID) readers to collect ECC at 13 entry points.
As per the Supreme Court order of October 9, 2015, the toll collecting agency was supposed to install RFID systems at nine main border points by November 30, 2015, and by January 31, 2016, at the remaining 118 entry points. On August 22 this year, the court ordered that the RFID systems be put in place at the 13 points where 80 per cent of the traffic enters Delhi.
The EPCA report said that the Delhi government is now “finalising the document” with the SDMC, which is the executing agency.
While the EPCA found the Delhi government’s implementation lacking on curbing dust from construction sites and roads, it said that there had been a shift from diesel to CNG or petrol-powered taxis.
The Supreme Court will on Tuesday hear the EPCA’s plea for better implementation of anti-pollution measures.
There’s a need for short-term emergency action and strict enforcement. In many cases, actions are lax and do not recognise the urgency of toxic
air pollution, particularly in winter
