PMO, local bodies gather to discuss air pollution in Delhi NCR

NEW DELHI: Dr P K Mishra, Principal Secretary to Prime Minister of India, is going to preside over a meeting consisting of all the urban local bodies (ULBs), pollution control boards of the regions and representatives from other organisations such as the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) under the title of high-level task force for the management of air pollution in Delhi-NCR.

The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) was supposed to hold this meeting on Friday, October 14. The representatives from the civic bodies, including Delhi, Faridabad, Noida, Gurugram, Greater Noida, Sonepat and Ghaziabad, will be present in this meeting. PMO will monitor the progress of civic bodies in sectors such as municipal waste management, construction waste, dumpsite remediation, mechanical road sweeping and waste burning that is directly linked to air pollution in the national capital region (NCR).

The meeting is convened three days after a national meeting to review the pollution mitigation steps, which was presided over by Bhupender Yadav, Minister for Environment Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC), Government of India. The meeting also saw participation from the environment ministers of the NCR state and Punjab.

This is the first instance when the updated Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) will be implemented in the Delhi NCR. The action plan prescribes a list of measures to curb pollution levels at certain trigger points in Delhi. The updated plan released by the CAQM also considers the Air Quality Index along with particulate matter (PM) 2.5 and PM 10 to trigger the suggested restrictions.

A senior official of the New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) has informed that the civic bodies have their own specific air pollution and waste management action plan, which will be presented in the meeting.