While Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) has been initiated in Delhi- National Capital Region (NCR) to minimise the impact of pollutants, Environment Pollution Control Authority (EPCA) chairperson, Sunita Narain said illegal godowns, each spanning across more than two acre have come up on agricultural land in Bahadurgarh district of Haryana, adjoining Asia's largest wholesale junk market in Delhi's Tikri Kalan. They burn plastic in the open which causes pollution.
"Plastic segregation and recycling are important for the city. The Delhi Development Authority (DDA) has given land for it at Tikri Kalan and Ramky Enviro Engineers Limited lifts the waste that cannot be recycled for controlled burning in waste-to-energy plants," Narain said.
The problem is that it is overflowing outside Tikri. There are illegal segregation units that burn the waste that cannot be recycled. Internal factors like vehicular emission and construction dust both contribute in pollution, Delhi Government should also work on these factors, Narain said.
"Incidents of external biomass burning cannot be ignored. These are exacerbating pollution in Delhi-NCR. But the fact is local sources of pollution are massive. Biomass burning is contributing 10 per cent, which means local sources account for the rest 90 per cent of the pollution. Uttar Pradesh, Harayana and Delhi are all to blame," Narain said.
Notably, as Delhi's air quality has deteriorated and anti- air pollution measures kicked from Tuesday, EPCA has asserted that local source of pollution in Delhi, Uttar Pardesh and Haryana are the primary reasons for poor air quality that plagues the national capital every winter. Stack (chimney) and dust pollution as well as open burning of plastic and rubber scrap are a major cause for concern, member of the Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority (EPCA) Narain said .
While Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has blamed stubble burning in the neighbouring states for deterioration of air quality in the city, SAFAR, the ministry of earth science's air quality and weather forecast service, has said the share of stubble burning in the PM 2.5 concentrations in Delhi has remained less than 10 percent so far. Narain said stack and dust pollution as well as open burning of plastic and rubber scrap are a major cause for concern.
This year, GRAP will witness the return of Delhi government's odd-even car rationing scheme from November 4 and the extension of the ban on diesel gen-sets to NCR cities of Gurgaon, Ghaziabad, Noida, Greater Noida, Faridabad, Sonepat, Panipat and Bahadurgarh.