Night patrolling in Delhi to stop waste burning

NEW DELHI: Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority (EPCA) on October 25 asked Delhi government to deploy night patrol teams to stop rampant open waste burning incidents across the city.

Recent inspections by the Supreme Court-appointed EPCA revealed several such cases across the city. Bhure Lal, EPCA chairperson, in a Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) meeting on October 25 said, “all these (burnings) take place at night. Take Bhalswa, for example, the fire happened at night. Similarly, at Nangloi, Ghevra, Tikri, Baprola, there is burning at night. Both plastic and rubber.”

The fire at Bhalswa landfill site was brought under control on October 20 but it still continued to smoulder.

Thus, the air quality in Delhi dipped to “very poor” again. The Centre-run System of Air Quality Forecasting and Research (SAFAR) also reported AQI in the “very poor” category on October 25.