Summer Plan to fight air pollution: Campaigns against open-burning, road dust start this week

New Delhi: The Delhi Government is set to launch its Summer Action Plan from Tuesday onwards through the Anti Open Burning Campaign which will run for one month starting from April 12 and the Anti Road Dust Campaign from April 15.

The State's environment Minister Gopal Rai said that in addition to this the government will execute 12 additional long-term campaigns under the Summer Action Plan which will include banning 19 types of single-use plastic from July onwards and promoting alternatives.

Under the Anti-Open-Burning Campaign, 500 teams from 10 departments will be deployed to monitor and prevent open-burning and send a report on it to the Environment Department. The Anti-Road Dust Campaign will press into service 78 mechanical road sweeping machines and 587 water sprinkling machines and a report on this is also to be sent to the Environment Department.

But significantly, in light of the extreme heat leading to spontaneous fires at Delhi's toxic landfill sites, Rai announced that a high-level meeting will be held on April 21 with experts from concerned domains and government departments (MCDs, DPCC, Environment Department) on how to prevent these fires. In his address to the media, he said that they will explore technically innovative ways of preventing such fires with a statement from his ministry adding that experts from IIT Delhi, TERI, DTU and CSE will also be roped in for this.

Apart from this, the Delhi government said it will soon announce a tree plantation drive on April 12 which is part of the Summer Action Plan. In a bid to further increase the city's green cover, the Environment Minister said that urban farming will be promoted and that the Director of Horticulture had already been tasked with it.

Under the new action plan, the PWD has formed a task force that will compile a list of areas with no green cover along the roadside, after which suitable action will be taken in the selected areas.

Rai said that the Summer Action plan also includes a survey that is being conducted to get all RWAs, and NGOs, to work together to create parks in the city. Its nodal department will be the Delhi Parks and Gardens Society and the DPGS will grant Rs 2,55,000 per acre annual maintenance fund to the RWA or NGO.

The government has also established Wetland Mitra and the Wetland Authority to Develop Delhi's Lakes and the DPGS will be its nodal agency, which also will be responsible for mapping the lakes.

A total of 1,607 registered industrial units have been converted to PNG and from April 20 onwards, the DPCC will conduct a special drive, and action will be taken if environmental standards are broken.

Part of the Summer action plan is also to develop the City Forest cover. The Environment Department will launch various awareness campaigns through the children of different Eco Clubs formed in schools and the environment department has also directed IIT Delhi and IIT Kanpur to submit a report on the real-time pollution-related causes by August 2022. The government is also developing an 18-acre E-Waste Eco Park at Holambi Kala with a zero-waste policy, which has now been included in its Summer Action Plan.