NEW DELHI: The kick-start of the festive season in Delhi will happen with the restrictions of the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) from Monday. The Supreme Court appointed environment watchdog EPCA has announced the initiation of GRAP with the plans for moderate to poor and poor to very poor air quality. Moreover, under this plan as decided the by the Apex Court and authorities, the years-old thermal power plant Badarpur would be fully closed down from Monday.
"The Supreme Court of India has directed that from October 15 to March 15 the GRAP will work in the NCR. Now the air quality is poor and the focus would be on basic measures but with time if the pollution rises the action plan will also shift to emergency categories," said Anumita Roy Chowdhury, Executive Director of Center for Science and Environment (CSE). She added that the GRAP has different plans for different levels of air pollution. "The SC said that every year this will happen and we have seen that the last year because of GRAP the situation was much better. We hope that this season will be much better however it's not early to predict anything," Roy Chowdhury told the Millennium Post.
If the air quality falls in the very poor category, additional measures of stopping the use of diesel generator sets, enhancing parking fees 3-4 times and increasing frequency of metro and buses would be implemented, she added. If the air quality falls in the severe category, additional measures like increasing frequency of mechanized cleaning of roads, sprinkling of water on roads and identifying road stretches with high dust generation, would be implemented. If the air quality falls to severe plus emergency category, then measures like stopping entry of trucks into Delhi (except essential commodities), stopping construction activities and appointment of a task force to take a decision on any additional steps, including shutting of schools, are implemented.
The measures depending upon the air quality will be implemented from Monday.
Currently, the air quality is in the poor category but authorities have predicted that it would reach the 'very poor' category in the next couple of days.
In addition to GRAP, the CPCB has also deployed 41 teams across the Delhi-NCR to monitor proper implementation of norms enforced to curb pollution at the source. Till October 11, 96 inspections were conducted by the teams across Delhi-NCR and the inspections would intensify in the coming days, a senior CPCB official said. The inspections were started by the two-member team on September 15, he added.
Meanwhile, satellite images from the NASA showed rampant stubble burning activity in Punjab and Haryana. The NASA, on its official website, stated that burning of crop residue in Punjab and Haryana has increased significantly over the past 10 days in and near Amritsar, Ambala, Karnal, Sirsa, and Hisar. Burning of paddy straw every year during October and November and wheat straw during April in Punjab and Haryana are the major contributors of air pollution in Delhi-NCR, as the smoke travels towards the national capital. In Delhi, it mixes with the fog and creates a toxic smoggy winter every year.