Delhi government on mission mode to curb pollution
New Delhi: Delhi government's response to the long running impact of pollution on the climate of the capital has been multifold involving various policy measures, attracting large scale voluntary citizen participation and providing financial aid in the form of subsidies.
The summer action plan launched by the government in April this year focuses on increasing green cover, rejuvenating water bodies and parks, development of eco parks, promoting urban farming, curbing the practice of open burning of garbage and phasing out single use plastic. Apart from this, the government has also devised an EV policy and a solar policy in bid to push the mobility and power ecosystems towards sustainability.
As per the government, under the summer action plan, 500 teams of 10 departments have been working on the scale of war footing. Apart from curbing pollution, the other goal of such policy measures is skill development in the renewable sector and employment generation. Under the 'smart urban farming' initiative, the government has decided to hire experts to conduct 400 awareness workshops and 600 entrepreneurship training programmes across the capital. The government aims to train 15,000 citizens in order to help them take up urban farming on their rooftops as an entrepreneurial venture.
As per experts, the declining green cover in Delhi over the years has been one of the most determining factors for the rising pollution levels. To give a boost to its agenda of increasing the green cover in the capital, the Delhi government is holding a mega plantation drive which is being celebrated as Van Mahotsav from July 11 to July 25. The government aims to plant 35 lakh saplings under this drive. During the festival, free saplings have been made available at government nurseries.
Commentators on climate change believe that initiatives like these are brought in with the aim of attracting the attention of the citizens in a bid to make them stakeholders in the discourse around environment and pollution. The government has also set the target of planting 3,50,550 bushes and 5,000 saplings between July 2022 and March 2023 to increase the green cover on roads and flyovers.
The Delhi government's response to the nationwide ban on single-use plastic was in the form of the 'Plastic Vikalp Mela' which ran for three days at the Thyagraj Stadium. Apart from exhibition of the alternatives, the government hosted various panel discussions and a round table conference inviting various stakeholders in order to reach a consensus on the implications of the ban.
Participants of the exhibition instilled immense faith in such a move as it not only gave them a platform to interact with citizens vouching for their products but also created a dialogue voicing their concerns around the economy of their products.
Based on the discussions held during the mela, Environment Minister Gopal Rai has written to both Union Minister for Environment Bhupendra Yadav and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman demanding more testing laboratories for alternatives to SUP and a reduction in GST rates on the raw materials required in making these alternatives. The DPCC has also set up a control room to monitor the implementation of this ban in the Capital.
