33 per cent increase in greening target for Delhi in 2022-23: Air panel

NEW DELHI: The Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) in NCR and adjoining states on Wednesday said that it has held a series of consultations with Delhi and other state governments to finalise 'greening action plan for 2022-23’ with an aim to cut down high pollution levels in the region.  

According to CAQM officials, as compared to the previous year, a 33% increase in plantation target has been set for the year 2022-23. “The target for plantation for the current year is 31,89,191 compared to 26,21,481 for 2021-22. The plantation targets for the current year include 6,06,098 trees; 25,69,093 shrubs and about 14,000 bamboos. Timelines covering various activities including site selection, pit digging, soil weathering, and commencement of plantation, weed removal, mortality refreshment, monitoring and replacement are part of the greening action plan,” said a senior official.  

“The Commission has advised dense plantations using Miyawaki technique along the boundaries of institutions and patches of land and gap filling between the conventional plantations along with post-plantation care of the plants. The plantations will start in July,” the official said. 

Also, officials said that there is a need to focus on greening along the central verges and roadsides for planting avenue trees, which act as a filter against pollution on key stretches that see a high traffic volume on a daily basis. Delhi’s air quality sees a major dip during the winter when pollution remain extremely high.

This summer too has seen ‘poor’ to ‘very poor’ air quality days on account of several incidents of massive fires last month at city’s sanitary landfills sites Bhalaswa and Ghazipur raging for days that contributed to bad air quality. Usually, the air quality in summer months due to high ventilation index remains ‘moderate’ to ‘poor’ with dust (PM10) as the major pollutant, which plunged to ‘very poor’ around April-end.

As per the Central Pollution Control Board data, the average AQI in Delhi in April was 256, which is the worst for this month since 2016.