With an aim to reduce air pollution in the city to one-third of the current levels, Finance Minister Manish Sisodia in the budget on Monday announced the deployment of “environment marshals” to aid district administration in enforcing environment laws.
The reduction in air pollution level to one-third was promised by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in the run up to the Delhi Assembly election as part of his 10-point guarantee card.
Mr. Sisodia on Monday also allocated ₹20 crore to create mass awareness on environment and also “Green citizen award” for people contributing towards environmental protection and preservation.
This comes after Environment Minister Gopal Rai stressed that the fight against air pollution has to be turned into a mass movement to make it a success.
Najafgarh drain
The Finance Minister also set aside ₹210 crore toward desilting, deepening of drains, constructing of series of check dams, barrages in 45 km length of Najafgarh drain with an aim to clean the Yamuna.
“We are yet to take a final call on which level official will be selected for environment marshals. They could be of the level from civil defence volunteers,” an official told The Hindu.
Also, following a Supreme Court order on January 13, the Delhi government is in the process of building a “smog tower” in Connaught Place to clean the air and ₹30 crore was allocated in the budget for it.
“There is a need to carry out intensive campaigns all over Delhi to create awareness and public participation in the environment. I propose ₹20 crore in the budget,” Mr. Sisodia said.
Also, in order to achieve the target of planting 2 crore saplings in the next five years, a target has been set to plant 40 lakh saplings by 22 green agencies in the year 2020-21.
