Don’t politicise pollution: Kejriwal
NEW DELHI: Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday said the issue of pollution should not be “politicised” even as he attributed Sunday’s hazardous air quality to stubble burning in the neighbouring states of Haryana and Punjab.
Addressing people via video on social media a day ahead of the odd-even road space rationing drive, Kejriwal urged all neighbouring states and the Centre to “sit together” and deliberate on how to prevent stubble burning.
“What will we get by playing blame-game? We are just saying that the smoke in Delhi is due to stubble burning and we have to stop it collectively. Even scientists and environmental experts are now saying that stubble burning is the main cause of smoke in Delhi. We just wish that all the state governments and the central government come together to solve the matter,” he said.
Kejriwal further questioned the pace at which the Centre was distributing straw management systems to farmers to stop stubble burning. “Till now 63,000 machines have been made available to farmers in Punjab and Haryana. There are 27 lakh farmers in these states. How long would it take to distribute these machines to all these farmers? For how long do we have to bear this pollution?” he asked.
Straw management systems are to be fitted with harvesters. Once these are fixed, these machines cut paddy straw into small pieces and spread evenly across the field. As a result, farmers do not have to burn the straw as it is.
OPPOSITION SLAMS GOVT
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress, however, alleged that there has been laxity on the part of the Kejriwal government in mitigating air pollution in the city.
The Delhi Congress on Sunday organised a protest outside Kejriwal’s residence against the soaring pollution levels in the city.
Over 100 people, along with Delhi Congress chief Subhash Chopra, demanded to meet the CM. The protest turned violent after protesters pushed through barricades.
The police detained Chopra and former MP JP Agarwal at the Civil Lines police station for nearly 45 minutes.
“We demand answers from the Delhi CM. Instead of meeting us and discussing ways to implement a better plan for the pollution in Delhi, he left the police to stop us. We will continue to raise people’s voice and the government will have to provide answers,” Chopra said.
BJP’S Rajya Sabha MP and former union minster Vijay Goel said past experiences of the odd-even drive, the third edition of which begins from Monday, have not had favourable impact on the city’s air.
“Every environmental agency has stated that odd-even drive has not helped in improving Delhi’s air. To protest against the drama put up by the Kejriwal government, tomorrow (Monday) I will take my car out on the city’s street,” said Goel.
BJP MLA from Rohini Vijender Gupta criticised the government for not being able to add adequate number of buses ahead of the drive. “Despite Kejriwal announcing the scheme way back in September, the government only managed to get over 830 private buses before rolling out the odd-even rule. It also missed its target of adding at least 300 cluster buses for the drive and instead inducted merely 125 buses,” he said.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) instead asked five questions to Union environment minister Prakash Javadekar on the Center’s plan to curb the increasing number of stubble burning in the states of Punjab and Haryana.
Senior AAP leader Atishi said, “My first question is what the central government has done to curb stubble burning in Punjab and Haryana. My second question to him is why the central government in the last five months has not called any multi-state meeting with all the environment minister of the NCR states on the issue of air pollution.”
The party also demanded to know the Centre’s time-bound plan for next year to combat stubble burning.
Generally people are in a hurry in the morning so it becomes convenient to book cab or drive, instead of public transport. But seeing the pollution levels, I will try to use public transport more often.
RASHI PUNIA, lawyer, 27