The National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Thursday expressed displeasure over how civic authorities in the Capital were dealing with vector-borne diseases. The Tribunal has now appointed 10 local commissioners to inspect different parts of the city under each municipal corporation and report to it about the situation on the ground.
Immediate steps needed
A Bench headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar said: “We appoint local commissioners to inspect areas under the jurisdiction of all municipal corporations and the Delhi Cantonment Board. They shall submit a complete and comprehensive report to show places of water logging and dumping of municipal solid waste.”
Stating that the agencies concerned were dealing with the annual menace as a “mere formality”, the NGT said that diseases like dengue and chikungunya were already spreading and immediate steps need to be taken to control them.
The Bench was hearing a petition put forth by a former scientist of the Central Pollution Control Board, Mahendra Pandey, who sought the setting up of committees to implement precautionary, preventive and curative actions to ensure that Delhiites are not exposed to dengue, chikungunya, and other diseases.
The plea also sought directions to the authorities concerned to not undertake outdoor thermal fogging to control dengue as it allegedly adds to the pollution.
The NGT, meanwhile, refused to agree with the submissions made by the civic bodies that most dengue patients came from outside Delhi, and that sufficient precautions had been taken to handle the situation.
‘Authorities have failed’
Advocate Gaurav Kumar Bansal, who appeared for Mr. Pandey, said that all the authorities had failed to discharge their duties.
Further, the NGT said that each local commissioner would be accompanied by an officer of the municipal corporation concerned. Directing the police to provide them with a security cover, the tribunal also fixed a remuneration of ₹15,000 that would be paid to them by the municipal corporation and the Delhi Cantonment Board.
The commissioners have also been asked to report about the mechanism adopted for dumping of municipal solid waste in unauthorised colonies and whether sites for fumigation had been identified. Further, the NGT has directed the Delhi Cantonment Board to sort out waste at the source and transport it to the Bawana waste processing plant after segregation.
Earlier, the Tribunal had earlier said that the Delhi government, civic bodies and other public authorities should provide a clean, and healthy environment to the people. Financial limitations should not come in the way of providing a good environment, it had noted.
