Delhi Govt Bans 92 Construction Sites Over Dust Norms

The Delhi government has banned 92 construction sites in the national capital for violating dust norms, said Environment Minister Gopal Rai on Saturday.

This comes a day after Diwali following which the city’s Air Quality Index (AQI) turned “hazardous”.
The Delhi Minister further informed that as an emergency measure, the government has also started spraying water on roads with the help of anti-smog water tanks to reduce air pollution.

“The Arvind Kejriwal government in Delhi had launched an action plan last month to tackle the air pollution, but on the day of Diwali, there was an increase in stubble burning in Punjab, Haryana, and some people in the national capital also brunt firecrackers because of which the pollution has increased,” stated Rai.

“As an emergency measure, we have started spraying water on roads with the help of anti-smog water tanks to reduce air pollution. We have also banned 92 construction sites for violating norms,” he added.

The environment minister further said that a total of 114 tankers are spraying water all over Delhi.

“Punjab, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh are burning stubbles in the highest amount and if the incidents of stubble burning increase in the neighbouring states, it affects Delhi,” he said.

Rai added that 3,500 incidents of stubble burning were reported on Friday and 4,000 stubble burning incidents have been reported today.

Stubble burning is a process of setting on fire the straw stubble, left after the harvesting of grains, like paddy, wheat, etc. The process of burning farm residue is one of the major causes of air pollution in parts of north India, deteriorating the air quality around this time of the year.

Combined with vehicular emission, it adversely affects the Air Quality Index (AQI) in the national capital.

The AQI of Delhi has touched 530, with air in the national capital becoming “hazardous” to breathe.

As per the Centre-run System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting And Research (SAFAR), the air quality would not improve until Sunday evening. The improvement would, however, just fluctuate in the ‘very poor’ category.

According to SAFAR, the concentrations of Pollution Meter (PM) 2.5 stood at 306 on Saturday in Delhi. (ANI)