NEW DELHI: The Delhi government is implementing the Winter Action Plan 2026-27 with public participation to tackle pollution in the national capital.
At a Cabinet meeting chaired by CM Rekha Gupta on Tuesday, two key decisions were taken to strengthen ground-level cleaning and enable scientific, real-time identification of the sources of pollution.
The Cabinet has decided to expand mechanised cleaning to smaller roads where the facility is currently unavailable, considering road dust to be a major source of particulate pollution. The initiative will cover around 609 km of roads with a right of way of less than 10 metres. A total of 854 roads across 250 wards have been identified under the initiative.
The government would provide a grant to the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) to procure 30 electric vehicle-based mechanical road sweeping machines. The civic body would deploy and operate the machines on the ground. The deployment of 30 EV-based mechanical road sweeping machines is estimated to cost around `393.73 crore over 10 years.
The use of electric machines will also ensure that the cleaning process undertaken for pollution control remains environment-friendly. The Delhi government and the municipal corporation will work together to expand ground-level action to reduce pollution caused by road dust.
Further, a system for continuous, real-time identification and analysis of PM2.5 and PM10 pollution sources will be developed in collaboration
with Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Delhi. This is aimed at strengthening the government’s scientific strategy against pollution. Under the initiative, the major sources of pollution and their quantities will be scientifically analysed continuously over 24 hours. The system will help identify and assess sources such as vehicular emissions, road dust and biomass burning.
The collaboration with IIT Delhi will be for five years and is estimated to cost around Rs 19.22 crore. The project will include restarting the existing super site and mobile lab.
609 km of roads with right of way less than 10 metres to be covered
Real-time analysis
A system for continuous, real-time identification and analysis of PM2.5 and PM10 pollution sources will be developed.