‘Potholed roads causing pollution’

NEWDELHI: The East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) on Thursday, during its standing committee meeting, stressed that broken roads were a major contributor to air pollution in the national capital and passed a private resolution asking the state government to release Rs 10,228 crore to the civic body as per the recommendations of the 4th Finance Commission.

The civic body said it has no money for road maintenance and the amount released by the government would be spent on repair of roads and other heads.

Air quality in Delhi had been deteriorating for the past few days and was in the ‘very poor’ category on Wednesday. The officials of environment department said that the levels of PM2.5 and PM 10 were way above their prescribed limit because of road dust and vehicular pollution.

A resolution moved by east Delhi civic body councillor Sandeep Kapoor said that the east corporation was sprinkling water on its roads and also conducting mechanical road sweeping but these efforts were ‘not enough’.

He said that the number of dust particles was quite high due to broken roads and because of fund crunch the east corporation not being able to repair these stretches.

“Delhi government has this year nullified the plan fund of the corporation and because of this the repair of roads, which earlier was being done, has stopped. The government has this year released no fund for the maintenance of roads, drains and parks …,” the resolution read.

Last year, the Delhi government had given ₹280 crore under urban development fund to the corporation but that money was insufficient, the official said.