A slew of measures have been initiated by the Environment Ministry in association with the State Governments of Rajasthan, Haryana, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh to reduce air pollution in Delhi and NCR.
These include stopping and burning of bio-wastes, initiating work for major up-gradation of Pollution Under Control (PUC) system, issuing challans of over-loaded goods vehicles, enhancing of parking slots availability, installing waste to energy plants and strict monitoring of polluting industries.
The Ministry will soon launch a people-oriented awareness campaign to check air pollution. On the industrial pollution In Delhi, the Ministry said that thermal power plants (Badarpur Thermal Power Plant and Rajghat Power Plant) are in process of installing online monitoring system (OMS). Timarpur Okhla Waste to Energy plant has installed online monitoring system and Ghazipur and Bawana will install Online Monitoring System before commissioning of the plant.
Further, the transport department is also contemplating remote sensing based PUC checking on the line of one installed in Kolkata and is in the process of developing online pollution checking module where the pollution would be checked on real time basis and will be captured on the sensor instantaneously. The sources said that the PUC System is being made tamper-proof for strict enforcement.
The public transport on CNG mode is also being strengthened and expanded. Further, The Chief Secretary has convened a meeting with NHAI and other concerned state agencies for installation of Weigh-in-Motion Bridge at Delhi borders.