New Delhi, Nov 14 (PTI) Terming the air quality in thenational capital as poor and unsafe, the Indian MedicalAssociation (IMA) today urged the Delhi High Court to passdirections to postpone the Delhi Half Marathon.
Taking note of the present air pollution in the city andthe urgency expressed by the IMA, a bench of Justices SRavindra Bhat and Sanjeev Sachdeva issued notice to the Delhigovernment, police, the pollution control panel DPCC and theorganisers of the event and sought their reply by November 16,the next date of hearing.
The order came on a letter written by the IMA to ActingChief Justice Gita Mittal and the Delhi Chief Minister ArvindKejriwal seeking postponing of the marathon, scheduled to beheld on November 19.
The letter was moved in the main PIL initiated by thehigh court to address air pollution problems of Delhi and inwhich it has been issuing directions from time to time.
The high court had on November 9 issued a slew ofdirections to improve air quality of Delhi.
Calling it an "emergency situation", the high court hadasked the government to consider the option of "cloud seeding"to induce rainfall artificially, as an immediate step to bringdown the dust and particulate matter in the atmosphere.
It had directed the Delhi government to seriouslyconsider a ban on further construction in the city to theextent possible and implementing the 'odd-even' vehicle usagescheme as a short term measure.
It had said that the fog here was a "deadly mixture ofvehicular pollution, construction and road dust and stubbleburning."Directions were also issued by the bench to the DelhiTraffic Police to ensure there is no vehicular congestion onthe roads and provide masks to the personnel on duty.
The bench had also ordered the Union EnvironmentSecretary to hold a meeting in the next three days of thechief secretaries of Delhi, Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradeshto work out a joint short-term plan to bring down airpollution. PTI HMP SKV PPS RRTDV.
This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.