Khan wants Javadekar to call meet on pollution

Delhi environment minister Asim Ahmed Khan has requested Union minister Prakash Javadekar to convene a meeting of various stakeholders in the national capital region to check the increasing levels of air pollution.

In a letter to Mr Javadekar, Mr Khan said several towns of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh fall within the NCR and requested him to ask them to set up joint checkposts well within their territories to ensure that overloaded vehicles could be checked and turned back before they enter the city. He requested Mr Javadekar to take up an initiative to coordinate source-specific pollution control activities in a holistic manner to check the sources of emission in the NCR. “Such efforts will not only improve the air quality in Delhi, but in the entire NCR.”

Mr Khan said that checking air pollution should be treated as top priority by all the concerned authorities and it should not become a subject of political wrangling. He said that an action plan to improve air quality in Delhi as recommended by a committee headed by the then chief secretary had been sent to the Union environment ministry in February.

“This action plan was limited to the areas in which the Delhi government can check the rise of air pollution. This action plan specifically focused on short- term and long- term measures to control air pollution in the national capital,” the minister wrote to the Centre.

Mr Khan said that as a follow- up of this action plan, the concerned departments, including the DDA, MCD, NDMC and the Delhi police have been requested to prepare time- bound implementation plans. “The concerned departments are working on the action points identified for them.”