Delhi Environment Minister Gopal Rai on Tuesday said his government will study and incorporate the observations made by the Supreme Court about the odd-even vehicle rationing scheme.
The Minister made the statement after the Supreme Court questioned the scheme’s efficacy and termed it “all optics”.
The Delhi government had announced the implementation of the plan from November 13, a day after Deepavali when pollution levels are likely to spike.
Odd-even is a traffic-rationing system in which vehicles with registration numbers ending with even digits are allowed to run on even dates, and those ending with odd numbers are permitted to ply on odd dates.
When asked if the scheme would be implemented from November 13, Mr. Rai said the government will comment on it only after studying the order.
‘Halt polluting vehicles’
Meanwhile, a Raj Niwas source said Lieutenant-Governor V.K. Saxena has shot off a note to the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO), stating that the file regarding the implementation of the scheme was neither signed by Mr. Rai nor Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.
Delhi Transport Minister Kailash Gahlot has also directed officials to ensure that polluting vehicles don’t enter the Capital. He said it has come to his notice that polluting vehicles are entering Delhi at odd hours from neighbouring States without hindrance. “It appears that no checking is being done at the city borders to restrict the entry of such polluting vehicles,” Mr. Gahlot said.
Only vehicles complying with BS-VI emission norms are allowed to ply in the city after the enforcement of Stage 4 of the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) on Sunday.
‘Kejriwal should resign’
Leader of the Opposition in the Delhi Assembly and BJP MLA Ramvir Singh Bidhuri said after the Supreme Court’s observation, Mr. Kejriwal has no moral right to remain in office and should immediately resign.
“The smoke from stubble burning in Punjab is continuously affecting the people of Delhi,” he said, claiming that Mr. Kejriwal had in the past promised to end farm fires in Punjab, where his party is in power.
“But this year, all records of stubble burning have been broken. Due to farm fires, the situation in Delhi has become so serious that the Supreme Court had to say that we cannot see people die like this,” he said.
The air pollution in the national capital spikes every winter mainly due to farm fires in neighbouring States and other meteorological factors.
According to a Consortium for Research on Agroecosystem Monitoring and Modelling from Space (CREAMS) lab, run by the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), a drop of 35.4% has been witnessed in stubble burning in Punjab from September 15 to November 7 when compared with the same period last year.
As many as 1,515 stubble-burning incidents were recorded in Punjab on Tuesday, the data showed.
Meanwhile, the air quality of Delhi improved slightly to the upper end of the ‘very poor’ category on Tuesday from ‘severe’ category a day earlier. Air pollution is still over 13 times the WHO limit.
Delhi’s 24-hour average air quality index (AQI) reading was 395 at 4 p.m, down from 421 on Monday, according to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) official bulletin. But by 8 p.m., the air quality of Delhi was 405 (‘severe’ category).
“The air quality is likely to deteriorate and will reach in ‘severe’ category on Wednesday,” according to the Centre’s Air Quality Early Warning System.
It said the air quality is likely to remain in ‘very poor’ or ‘severe’ category for the next six days.
According to the CPCB, an AQI reading between zero and 50 is considered ‘good’, 51 and 100 ‘satisfactory’, 101 and 200 ‘moderate’, 201 and 300 ‘poor’, 301 and 400 ‘very poor’, and 401 and 500 ‘severe’.
