Govt asks officials to ensure guards, homeless get heaters
NEW DELHI: To curb the practice waste-burning during winter, Delhi environment minister Imran Hussain on Tuesday directed officials to ensure electric heaters are provided at all night shelters and to guards across government offices.
The directive assumes significance as garbage burning sees a spike with winter intensifying in the city. Those who have to bear the chill by being out in the open at night often resort to burning of leaves and waste to stay warm.
A study by IIT Kanpur on air pollution submitted to the government says waste-burning contributes 3% to Delhi’s PM2.5 levels and 1% to PM10 levels.
“Provide electrical heaters to security guards in cold winter night to discourage burning of biomass for heating. Non-biomass heating facility should be provided at all night shelters,” Hussain wrote the letter to Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) chief, Keshav Chandra.
The DPCC said it is going to issue orders to the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board (DUSIB) to strictly ensure electrical heaters are provided in every night shelter in Delhi. Though a 2014 survey by DUSIB records the number of homeless people in Delhi at 16,000, NGOS estimate that the number may run up to a lakh people or more.
“Despite providing shelter to 15,774 people, it is found that almost all of them step out and sit in groups around a fire lit from waste. This happens almost in every nook and corner of Delhi during peak winters,” a DUSIB official said.
RWAS ON BOARD
Following the measures under the Supreme Court mandated Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP), civic agencies have already started informing Resident Welfare Associations (RWAS) to provide security guards and other support staff with electric heaters in housing societies and gated colonies.
“Our teams are conducting drives early in the morning and at night where RWAS are being informed about the directive from the Sc-appointed EPCA. In the next phase and once winter set in, the drive would be intensified where notices would be issued to non-complying RWAS,” said an official of the North Delhi Municipal Corporation.
The state pollution control board is also issuing orders to every Delhi government building to ensure electric heaters are provided to the guards. NEW DELHI: The National Green Tribunal on Tuesday issued notices to the Delhi government, the Union ministry of environment and forests, Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor Development Corporation and Delhi Pollution Control Committee over felling of 1,961 trees for a construction project in Dwarka.
The move comes after a petition, which demanded a “complete review of the project so as to analyse how many trees can be saved by little change in the plan or to see if the fully grown trees can be implemented in the project itself.” The project under scanner is construction of an international exhibition-cum-convention centre in Dwarka’s Sector 25.
According to the petitioner, environmental activist Shobhit Chauhan, the project proponent Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor Development Corporation should explore the possibility of transplantation of the mature trees rather than recklessly felling the trees and earning revenue by sale of timber obtained.
“We have asked that the compensatory plantation should be undertaken around Dwarka subcity, in order to maintain the ecological balance,” Chauhan said.
A bench headed by NGT chairperson Swatanter Kumar on Tuesday gave the agencies a week’s time to submit their reports. The matter will be heard next on December 11.