New Delhi: The courts came down heavily on the Centre, the Delhi government and those of the neighbouring states yet again on Thursday, on the severe levels of air pollution in the national capital.
The Delhi High Court stepped into the fray chastising the Delhi government for failing to check the situation.
Mincing no words, the court said the Delhi government’s lack of action was “genocide” as 10,500 of Delhi’s people die of chronic respiratory related diseases every year.
It also, like the NGT, turned the heat on neighbouring states, especially Punjab.
Saying the state was in a denial mode, the high court pulled up Punjab for not curbing crop burning, one of the major contributors to Delhi’s winter smog.
Punjab has been seen as a tricky issue by environmentalists, as due to the coming elections no authority wants to penalise farmers. The court said that governments seemed concerned with vote banks and not human lives.
On the other hand, Haryana introduced fines and made crop burning a prosecutable offence. The High Court took note of that, saying there no was no significant contribution to pollution from Haryana and Rajasthan.
A bench of the National Green Tribunal, headed by its chairperson Swatanter Kumar directed that monitoring committees be set up at the central and the state levels, and that Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan should consider banning 10-year-old diesel vehicles from the roads. The bench again brought up the use of helicopters, telling states to use them to sprinkle water when the PM2.5 and PM10 levels hit the severe category.
On November 8, the NGT had questioned the Delhi government why it was using cranes to sprinkle water instead of helicopters.
Environmentalists, though, have expressed reservation on such a measure, as helicopters themselves produce a great deal of dust.
Air pollution was up for hearing in the Supreme Court too, as the apex court had asked the Centre to submit a comprehensive emergency plan for air pollution by Thursday.
However, it seemed, it could repeat its directions to the centre, once again telling it to meet all stakeholders to create such a plan.
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