NGT notice to police chief, traffic commissioner over air pollution

New Delhi: The National Green Tribunal has sought responses from the Delhi police chief and the special commissioner of traffic management about measures taken to mitigate air pollution due to vehicular movement and parking issues.

It also observed that a transparent process should be followed to invoke different stages of anti-pollution measure Graded Response Action Plan (GPAP).

The green body was hearing the issue of deteriorating air quality in the National Capital Region (NCR), necessitating the invoking various stages of GRAP. In an order dated October 24, a bench of NGT Chairperson Justice Prakash Shrivastava said, “Now, the winter has started, and we find that the Air Quality Index (AQI) on October 23 in Delhi was 364 in the very poor category which reflects that there is a lapse on the part of the authorities in preventing the dip in the air quality in NCR.”

The bench, also comprising judicial-member Justice Arun Kumar Tyagi and expert member A Senthil Vel, noted a report by the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) dated October 23 about the GRAP schedule being “comprehensively reviewed” and that Stage I of GRAP was invoked when the average AQI of the national capital was higher than 200 for a “sufficiently long duration.”

Expressing its dissatisfaction, the tribunal said, “It is not disclosed as to the average of how many days are taken to invoke stage I and it is also not disclosed what duration is treated to be sufficiently long.”

“We feel that the objective criteria need to be applied, and a transparent process needs to be adopted for invoking the different stages of GRAP,” it added.

The NGT noted that vehicular pollution was among the major contributory factors for air pollution and the responsibility of controlling the traffic, parking issues, enforcing the ban on unauthorised and old vehicles was of the police.

The tribunal then impleaded the police commissioner and the special commissioner of traffic management as parties or respondents.

“Let notices be issued to the newly added respondents for filing the response by way of affidavit disclosing the steps which have been taken at the ground level to mitigate the contributory air polluting factors relating to vehicular movements and parking,” the tribunal said.

The tribunal ordered the Delhi government and MCD to strengthen monitoring teams checking pollution violations. It urged the CPCB and MCD to promote their pollution monitoring apps.

The Union Ministry of Environment reported no proposed air quality monitoring stations for Delhi. The tribunal also requested the CAQM to disclose measures taken from January to September 2024 to maintain air quality during winter.

Further proceedings are set for November 5.