Over 7k environment violations reported during clean air drive

NEWDELHI: More than 7,300 cases of environmental norm violations were detected across Delhi during the two-week Clean Air Campaign, union environment minister Harsh Vardhan said on Friday. Of these, more than 50% were found in the construction and demolition sites.

“In some cases, the team members were physically assaulted…in many cases, government agencies were found violating environmental norms. Sometimes, it was more difficult to handle government agencies than individual violators,” Vardhan said.

The first Clean Air Campaign, a 14-day joint drive, was launched by the Union environment ministry with the Delhi government, municipal bodies and Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) this month to sensitise groundlevel functionaries and local residents to enforce the habit of environmental protection.

The teams collected around ₹9 crore through challans. The minister said only around 40% of the violators, who refused to comply with the environment norms even after being warned, were penalised. A comparison of air quality during the campaign period (February 10 – 23) with the last year, however, showed no improvement patterns, which could be directly attributed to the campaign.

The Air Quality Index data available with the CPCB shows that while in 2017 there was not a single when air quality was in ‘very poor’ category, in 2018 there were at least two ‘very poor’ days between February 10 and 23.

The number of poor quality days dropped from 14 in 2017 to around eight this year. The number of moderate days shot up from one in 2017 to around four in 2018.

Vardhan, however, said the overall air quality improved from January 12. The project was launched on a Saturday on January 10. “We know that we can achieve 100% in these two weeks. But if you see the data from Monday (January 12) then we have not gone back to the ‘very poor’ days… The overall air quality has also improved in 2017 compared to 2016. It is showing further improvements in 2018,” he added.

At least 70 teams comprising officials from CPCB, Delhi government and civic agencies fanned across the city to detect incidents of environment norm violations. “We have received a number of suggestions. The best will be compiled to help us in our future campaigns,” he added.

Construction & demolition activity Road dust

Traffic violation Open burning Vehicular pollution Landfill violation Others 46 61 4 75 123 461 Total no of violations Total no of challans