Prep underway to mitigate winter pollution, says Delhi minister Gopal Rai

New Delhi
The Delhi government has already started preparations to tackle pollution in the upcoming winter season, Delhi’s environment minister Gopal Rai said, after holding a meeting with officials of the environment department, Delhi Pollution Control Board (DPCC) and development department.
Rai said they discussed focal points to control air pollution in winter and announced that a round-table conference will be held with experts later this month to control pollution through public participation.
“On August 21, ‘Save Environment’ round-table conference will be organised with environmental experts at the Delhi Secretariat. In the conference, a winter action plan will be prepared based on the opinion of experts. This year, the main objective of our government will be to control pollution through public participation,” the minister said.
Delhi sees a severe deterioration of the air quality index (AQI) every winter, especially from November to January, due to multiple reasons, including dust due to construction, stubble burning in neighbouring regions and meteorological conditions conducive to transporting pollutants to the Capital.
On Friday, departments zeroed in on focus points, such as dust pollution, pollution caused by vehicles, stubble burning challenges and garbage burning.
“Apart from these, there is industrial pollution. It will be ensured that all registered industrial units of Delhi are converted to PNG. Green War Room and Green Delhi App have been created. It has been decided to upgrade it so that we can communicate with people in a better way and action can be taken on their complaints in time,” he said.
Officials also discussed major pollution hot spots and said real-time studies will be conducted to identify problems.
Rai said that the government will focus on increasing the green area of Delhi and raising public awareness.
“Awareness campaign will be run against pollution. The next focus point is the ban on firecrackers and under other focus points, communication will be established with the central government and neighbouring states, so that joint work can be done to control pollution. Apart from this, there is the implementation of Grap, around which we will further develop our plan,” the minister said.