Delhi not happy with air pollution management by the Centre: Supreme Court

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court of India, on December 18, said that the work done by the commission for air quality management has not been satisfactory. The commission, which was constituted on November 5 this year by the Government of India, said that it has been working on developing technology for emergency response and has involved several experts from the fields of engineering, meteorology, advanced computing and environmental engineering for the same.

The Supreme Court bench headed by SA Bobde, Chief Justice of India (CJI), sought to know the work done by the commission till date to deal with the pollution in Delhi caused by stubble burning and other reasons at the hearing scheduled because of a petition filed by two environment activists. A jointly filed affidavit by the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) and Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) was submitted before the court. It provided description of a Decision Support System (DSS) being developed for air quality emergency response activities involving resource persons from scientific institutions.

In reply to the assurance given by Tushar Mehta, Solicitor General for the centre that the commission is working in right earnest CJI Bobde remarked, “We don’t know what your Commission is doing, but people in Delhi are not happy.” The court is set to examine the issue again in the second week of January 2021.