In a bid to rein in pollution in the Capital, the Delhi government has decided to procure between 15 and 20 vacuum cleaning machines for roads.
Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal made an announcement to this effect on Sunday and added that the Public Works Department (PWD) would start by vacuum cleaning roads that are 100-feet-wide from November 10. Each road would be cleaned once a week to reduce the number of dust particles in the air.
“The PWD will start by vacuum cleaning 100-feet-wide roads since the machines are big and cannot enter narrow lanes. Water will be manually sprinkled on other roads,” said Mr. Kejriwal.
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The PWD started the water sprinkling exercise on Sunday. Vacuum cleaning on the PWD’s 1,250-km road network was introduced in April, but was stopped once the monsoon set in. Now, to tackle dust pollution, the government plans to install mist fountains at five important traffic intersections - including Mukarba Chowk and Anand Vihar, which is the most polluted area of the city.
Further, the use of all diesel generator sets has been prohibited for the next five days starting Monday. This however, does not apply to hospitals and mobile towers. The government has also shut the Badarpur thermal power plant with the Chief Minister assuring that power supply would remain unaffected.
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“I request people to take legal power connections and stop power theft. The Power Department has been directed to be lenient in issuing connections. However, this doesn’t mean that unauthorised colonies and illegal houses will become legal if they get a connection,” Mr. Kejriwal clarified.
Burning of waste and leaves, which was banned by the National Green Tribunal in April last year, still continues unabated.
Addressing this issue the Chief Minister said, “Officials will be held accountable and penalised. Their salaries will be deducted if waste or leaves are found burning in the open.”
Also, municipal corporations have been directed to ensure that fires emanating from landfill sites are doused. In fact, fire at the 40-acre Bhalswa landfill is a regular feature. Matters took a political turn in April when the Delhi government alleged that the BJP had intentionally sparked the fire to ‘sabotage’ the second instalment of the odd-even scheme by causing high pollution levels.
“The fire at the landfill should be doused immediately,” Mr. Kejriwal noted.
He also announced that a committee comprising the Chief Secretary and Environment Secretary had been formed to consider artificial rain over Delhi so that the dust settles. “Cloud seeding and artificial rains were discussed during a meeting with the Centre. The committee will explore the option,” he added.