New Delhi: The Delhi government will face the real challenge over road rationing scheme to curb pollution on Monday as it will the full working day and lakhs of commuters are expected to hit city roads after a short vacation and weekends.
The government on Monday said that elaborate arrangements have been made to meet the real challenge as part of which volunteers will be using hidden cameras to take photographs of violators and additional police forces would be fielded to ensure its effective compliance.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is expected to car pool to work today along with Transport Minister Gopal Rai and Home Minister Satyendra Jain.
The Delhi transport minister held a coordination committee meeting which was attended by senior officers from Traffic Police, Delhi Police, civil defence force, Metro officials and other agency heads engaged in implementation of the ambitious car-rationing scheme, which came into force on January 1.
Rai said, "There are people who are saying that the real test of this scheme will be on Monday when people in large numbers will go to work. I am confident that people in Delhi will continue to support our cause."
He added, "Many are trying threatened our plans. There are people coming from other states to create nuisance but we are not nervous, the people of Delhi are with us. We will collect all the pollution data and release it at the end of the 15 day trial."
From January 1 to January 15, Delhi metro will run over 1,000 extra trips. Total 3,192 trips backed with 198 trains will be made against the usual 2,827 trips every day. Additional manpower will be deployed to handle the ticketing system in all the metro stations.
The odd-even road rationing scheme by the Delhi government proved to be a major success since its implementation on January 1. On day two, there was a drop of 300 percent in air pollution levels recorded in some parts of Delhi as compared to last year.
Health experts blame air pollution for sharp rise in respiratory diseases in Delhi with 3.5 million cases of acute respiratory infection recorded in 2014. According to Union Health Ministry report, there is 30 per cent rise in cases of respiratory infections since 2010.
"Nearly 11 per cent people in Delhi suffered from asthma and rhinitis and over one-third school kids in Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and Delhi suffer from reduced lung capacity," as per the health ministry report.
So far more than 367 offenders were challaned for violation of the odd-even scheme in Delhi.
Meanwhile, the Delhi government published advertisement in some of the leading newspapers showing pictures of two lungs – one from a man in Himachal Pradesh and the other in Delhi.
The lung from Delhi has got darkened due to pollution, while the other lung seems quite healthy. The advertisement was published to make people aware about the ill affect of pollution in Delhi.
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