NEW DELHI: Senior Aam Aadmi Party leader and national spokesperson Raghav Chadha on Wednesday claimed that the "abject inaction" of BJP-led government in neighbouring Haryana is a prime cause for Delhi's increasing pollution.
He further claimed that despite Environment Pollution Control Authority enforcing the Graded Response Action Plan, Haryana has refused to ban diesel gensets, furthering air pollution.
"The abject inaction of BJP-led government in neighbouring Haryana is a prime cause for Delhi's increasing pollution and the resulting poor AQI," Chadha said.
"As GRAP will come into force from 15 October, the use of diesel gensets will be banned in the regions of Delhi-NCR. While Delhi government has dutifully followed the rules set forth by EPCA, our neighbours in Haryana don't seem to want to take any action.
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"Their government has written 'distress letters' to EPCA repeatedly, saying that they can't enforce the ban in their state," he told reporters.
"They tell the Supreme Court-constituted body called EPCA that Gurugram and Faridabad have several thousand homes that don't get electricity, that these homes are wholly dependent on diesel gensets, which is why a ban won't be conducive," he added.
Chadha further claimed that because the Haryana government had failed to provide electricity to its residents, the latter have been compelled to resort to an unnatural and extremely polluting form of electricity.
"In my understanding, this is a failure on part of the Haryana government, who could not give its residents in the hugely populous cities of Gurugram and Faridabad supply of electricity, and compel the use of gensets," he said.