he Delhi High Court on Thursday asked the city traffic police about adoption of an intelligent traffic management system to resolve the issue of congestions and recurring jams on the roads. The court observed that bumper-to-bumper driving contributes to pollution in the Capital.
Hearing a public interest litigation initiated on its own on air pollution, a Division Bench comprising Justice B.D. Ahmed and Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva suggested that the traffic police develop a mobile app on the pattern of Google Maps showing real time traffic congestion or the shortest or alternate route to reach any destination.
In its report filed in the court, the traffic police said as many as 14 spots in the city had been identified as congested junctions or corridors, which were extremely affected. The traffic police will shortly procure 50 mounted speed detection cameras for capturing over-speeding and 32 red light violations detection systems to capture red light and stop line violations.
According to the report, 200 body-worn cameras will be worn by traffic police personnel on duty to ensure proper conduct and behaviour of policemen as well as public and bring in transparency.
The court also took note of a report submitted by the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC), while observing that the year 2015 was relatively a better year in terms of pollution index, but it did not mean that the situation was good. “PM2.5, PM10, nitrogen dioxide and benzene levels were beyond the maximum prescribed limits,” observed the Bench.
The high levels of benzene and nitrogen dioxide in the air were on account of vehicular pollution, said the court. The DPCC report indicated that during three periods – October to November, December to January and May to June – air pollution in the Capital rose to very high levels.
In October-November, the pollution level was at a higher level due to burning of biomass and crops in neighbouring States, while in December-January it was on account of temperature inversions and in May-June due to dust storms emanating from Rajasthan, according to the report.
The Delhi government also informed the Bench that dismantling of BRT corridor was in progress and would be completed by March-end.
The court had last month directed the Centre, Delhi government and others to submit their plans for bringing pollution levels within the prescribed limits. The court's earlier observation that living in Delhi was like “living in a gas chamber” had prompted the government to introduce the odd-even scheme for vehicle rationing on an experimental basis for a fortnight.
DPCC had observed that the year 2015 was relatively a better year in terms of pollution index
