Ensure dust mitigation or face action, warns Centre

NEW DELHI : The Union environment ministry has warned government agencies, including DDA, DMRC and NHAI, to ensure that dust mitigation steps are taken at construction sites.

The ministry has said that dumping of construction and demolition waste at DDA sites or any public land should be stopped “immediately” and asked both the DDA and municipal corporations in Delhi to prepare a list of approved dumping sites to ensure that dumping takes place “only at such sites”.

The tendering process for remediation of landfill sites at Ghazipur and Bhalswa has been initiated and work will start in the next four months, the ministry was informed during a meeting held on Wednesday on ways to combat air pollution in DelhiNCR.

During the meeting, it was decided that all agencies will be held “accountable” for implementation of the decisions taken.

“Government agencies like PWD, DDA, DMRC and NHAI have been strictly directed to ensure that dust mitigation steps are taken at their construction sites. Default by any of these organisations will result in action against the defaulting officers of these organisations,” a statement issued by the ministry later said.

All the four municipal corporations have prepared detailed action plans to carry out greening work on a large scale.

“It was decided that this activity should be completed by October 2018,” the statement stated.

The process of procurement of mechanised road sweeping machines has been initiated by the MCDS and it was decided that procurement and deployment of all machines should be completed by September, 2018.

“MCD had formulated plans for procurement of water tankers. It was decided that all roads where mechanised sweeping is not possible, should be covered with water sprinklers.

“It was decided that the daily deployment of mechanised sweepers and water sprinklers will be published on the respective website of the municipal corporations with the help of GPS data, so that the public is informed of the deployment details,” the statement added.

The review meeting was chaired by Union environment secretary CK Mishra and attended by the chief secretary of Delhi government, all commissioners of municipal corporations in Delhi and other senior officials of the Delhi government.

Appreciating the work done by the Delhi government till now, the meeting also noted that a lot of work still remains to be done to ensure better AQI levels in Delhi, the statement said.