Top court wants report on impact of odd-even on city’s pollution

NEW DELHI: On a day Delhi’s air quality plummeted to the ‘severe’ category, and is expected to dip further, the Supreme Court directed the government to explore the possibility of installing smog towers (giant air filters) in the national capital.

Hearing a bunch of petitions on air pollution in Delhi, a bench of Justices Arun Mishra and Deepak Gupta ordered the centre and Delhi government “to convene a meeting by tomorrow (Thursday) for working out the feasibility of installation of smog towers which take care of the smog within certain range of kilometres, to say 3 to 10 kms, and place their concrete proposal as it is an urgent matter from the point of view of Delhi”.

Taking up a petition that challenges the Delhi government’s odd-even scheme, the bench also placed before it a report, which is a record of air quality index of every day from November 2 to November 14.

The court ordered that a dayto-day record of last year, maintained by CPCB, for the same period from October 1 2018 till December 31, 2018 and January and February 2019 be placed on record before the court.

Earlier in the day, taking suo motu cognisance of the worsening air quality, the Supreme Court bench, led by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, asked the Centre to submit a report by December 3 after Centre told the court that it was exploring the feasibility of switching to Japanese hydrogenbased fuel tech to deal with air pollution.

“In our view, little constructive efforts have been made by the government and other stakeholders to find solution to the problem,” the top court bench said.’

TAKING UP A PETITION THAT CHALLENGES THE ODD-EVEN SCHEME, THE BENCH ALSO PLACED BEFORE IT A REPORT, WHICH IS A RECORD OF AQI FROM NOVEMBER 2 TO NOVEMBER 14