Taking air pollution as a serious matter, the Government announced that lED screens will be installed at different places for displaying pollution levels and public awareness messages and will introduce mechanical sweepers and use of disposal bio-degradable bags under the new scheme of Comprehensive Maintenance of Roads.
Besides, developing infrastructure to curb pollution, the city will have two plants for Construction and Demolition (C& D) waste handling units of 500 Metric tonne per day at libaspur and Tikri border as announced by the AAP Government during the Budget Session on Monday.
Under this scheme, the AAP Government will use Rs 100 crore of Delhi Budget to ensure the routine washing and cleaning of street furniture with mechanical equipments. Earlier, environmentalists raised several issues about road side dust which plays pivotal role to increase the mass concentration of Particulate Matter (PM) 10 in city air.
Although the proposal has been much appreciated among environmentalists and health experts but they also said Delhi is already late to use such technology. “With appropriate plans, the State Government needs to run this project as early as possible because silt load on some of Delhi’s roads is very high and it can become airborne with the movement of vehicles. The estimated PM10 emission from road dust is over 65 tonnes per day,” said environmentalist Gopal Krishna.
The AAP’s new venture to construct waste in house plants was also recognised by environmentalists as this can conserve land sites. “Reducing and recycling C&D materials conserves landfill space, reduces the environmental impact of producing new materials, creates jobs, and can reduce overall building project expenses through avoided purchase/disposal costs,” said Krishna.
To monitor air quality in Delhi, the Delhi Government also announced that one mobile ambient air quality monitoring van has proposed while the number of monitoring stations has proposed to be increased to nine. Currently, there are six such stations.
Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia also said problem of traffic congestion and air pollution has reduced remarkably during the pilot run of odd-even scheme. “We proposed to continue the odd-even scheme in 2016-17 too to resolve the problem of air pollution,” said Sisodia.