Small NCR towns under CPCB radar for polluting activities

NEW DELHI: Bahadurgarh, Sonepat and Jhajjar are now on the radar of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB). As per CPCB officials, the focus is on small cities and not on major cities in the National Capital Region (NCR) any more.

A senior CPCB official said, “We have received feedback about high pollution activities in these towns. Of course, that is impacting Delhi air too. So after our initial focus on the big cities, we are also looking at smaller towns.”

In a recent meeting of Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP), the authorities were asked to keep a check on construction and demolition activities, open dumping and burning of solid waste, and traffic congestion in these towns.

CPCB has recently released a list of NCR hotspots. As per the list, the hotspots in Delhi are Anand Vihar, Bawana, CRRI Mathura Road, DTU, Dr Karni Singh Shooting Range, Dwarka Sector 8, Jahangirpuri, Mundka, NSIT Dwarka, Narela, Okhla Phase-2, RK Puram, Rohini, Shadipur and Wazirpur. The areas listed in the rest of the NCR are Sector 16A in Faridabad, Vikas Sadan in Gurugram, Vasundhara in Ghaziabad, Knowledge Park-III in Greater Noida, Sector 125 in Noida and RIICO Industrial Area III in Rajsthan’s Bhiwadi.

In the last week, during a meeting called by the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi, all agencies were instructed to ask their field officers to visit hotspots and take appropriate actions against polluting activities.

The LG also directed a team of representatives from corporations, revenue department, Delhi Pollution Control Committee and asked the agencies to night patrol and analyse the findings to take action against any waste burning incident.