Now environment marshals take charge of 7 Delhi wards

◗ Trained to act as the eyes and ears of the government, the marshals will report incidents of open burning of garbage or plastic, or open dumping of construction waste

To check burning in the open and other practices that cause air pollution, the Delhi government on Wednesday announced the deployment of home guard volunteers as environment marshals.

Fourteen home guards have already been posted in seven wards of three municipal corporations, covering high polluting areas, including Anand Vihar, I. P. Extension, Jhilmil, Daryaganj, Okhla, Sanjay Gandhi Transport NagarSamaypur Badli and Shahbad Daulatpur- Pooth Khurd.

“In the coming days, the Department of Environment plans to increase the number of marshals to 100 who will be deployed in 50 wards of MCD,” the government said in a statement.

Trained to act as the eyes and ears of the government, the marshals will report incidents of open burning of leaves, garbage or plastic, or open dumping of construction waste and spillage of solid waste at landfill sites.

In November, the National Green Tribunal ( NGT) had asked the Delhi Pollution Control Committee ( DPCC), under the Aam Aadmi Party government, to check open burning of garbage biomass and garbage of any kind among others and to take effective measures to control dust pollution caused due to irresponsible construction activities.

Later, the Central Pollution Control Board also came up with rules barring sale of construction materials at the road side and notifying standards for dumping the construction waste by either covering it or sprinkling water to control dust.

According to the Delhi government, the marshals will report to supervisory officers from the pollution committee on a daily basis and will be paid a lump sum monthly amount of ` 5,000 for transportation and ` 1,500 for mobile phone usage.