NEW DELHI: To control the massive spike in air pollution after Diwali on Thursday, the Delhi government has started sprinkling water on roads using more than 100 tankers on Saturday.
Environment Minister Gopal Rai said the government has deployed 114 tankers as pollution levels in Delhi have increased due to stubble burning in Punjab and Haryana along with bursting of crackers in the national capital.
Rai said incidents of stubble burning were increasing in neighboring states, claiming that there were 3,500 incidents on Friday and about 4,000 on Saturday.
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“Smog guns have been installed on a large scale across Delhi. Water is also being sprinkled on the roads with the help of tankers. We found 92 construction sites that were violating air pollution norms and orders have been given to seal all of them. When incidents of stubble burning increase in Punjab and Haryana, then its effect is clearly visible throughout Delhi,” Rai said.
According to the reports, stubble burning is the highest in Punjab followed by Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. It is expected that there will be some improvement in air pollution in the next one or two days. “But the way the incidents of stubble burning are coming to the fore in Punjab and Haryana, if it increases, then surely its effect will be visible on Delhi,” he said.
Rai said the Chief Minister had launched the winter action plan a month ago against air pollution. “Since then, the Delhi Government has been working with the people to control the pollution. Whether it is pollution from dust, vehicles, biomass or whether it is the work of spraying bio-decomposer solution for stubble management, campaigns have been carried out all over Delhi,” he said. P4