New Delhi, Sept. 1 -- Delhi government steps up preparations for the pollution season, identifying nearly 78,000 Delhi-registered BS-III and BS-IV heavy vehicles for voluntary transition to cleaner BS-VI models, while constituting district-level task forces to tackle local pollution and traffic hotspots.
Officials said deputy commissioners, district magistrates and other officials have been tasked with identifying hotspots and proposing area-specific engineering solutions by the end of September. The vehicle transition drive is part of the Centre's Rs 9,585-crore Parivartan scheme, which offers incentives for eligible owners shifting to BS-VI diesel/CNG or electric commercial vehicles.
The government has also expanded construction and demolition waste collection sites from 106 to 125 and intensified dust monitoring through its AI-enabled anti-pollution portal, which has flagged around 2,000 sites violating prescribed measures.
On industrial emissions, air-quality control devices have been made mandatory for 80 categories of industries, while more than 90 industries must install Online Emission Monitoring Systems (OEMS).
The Delhi government has planted around 60 lakh of its targeted 70-lakh trees and identified nearly 3,000 environmental volunteers. Stricter pollution-control measures will take effect from November 1 under Section 5 of the Environment Protection Act, regardless of the GRAP stage.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.