The Delhi government, running a major anti-dust campaign, has made it clear that it will show no mercy to those causing dust pollution in the national capital.
Environment Minister Gopal Rai today went on a surprise inspection of a project site being operated by L&T at Pragati Maidan after receiving complaints. After the inspection of the site, L&T was found to be grossly violating anti-dust norms and was issued a show-cause notice with a penalty of Rs 5 lakh.
If L&T fails to comply with the norms within two days, it will have to pay a penalty of Rs 5 lakh per day till it complies with the norms.
“We had got to know about the negligence by L&T around the tunnel they are constructing at Pragati Maidan. I visited the site myself to take stock of the situation and found a gross violation of the guidelines,” he said.
Gopal Rai said all agencies, government or private, have to mandatorily adhere to the anti-dust norms and the Kejriwal government will not tolerate a “laid back attitude”. The government has issued 14 simple norms, given constant reminders and public notices. It is not a Herculean task to implement the norms for agencies. If the agencies do not implement them, then they should be prepared for strict action.
Earlier, the minister also launched a ‘dust pollution control self-assessment portal’ to further bolster the Kejriwal government’s anti-dust campaign. Monitoring work will start with effect from 1 November through https://dustcontroldpcc.delhi.gov.in till October 29. Thirtyone teams will do on-ground investigation.
The Environment Minister also talked about how negligence is taking place despite all efforts to promote awareness. “We have prepared a robust plan for running the anti-dust campaign in an organised manner throughout Delhi. For this purpose, all the government agencies which take up construction work were called for a meeting on 14 September.
The private agencies were called for a meeting on 17 September as well. We had discussed a 14-point agenda with them.
Rai said, “In the fight against pollution in Delhi, we started an anti-dust campaign today which will go on till 29 October. Last year also we did this campaign but there are so much construction inside Delhi that it was difficult to monitor them all in the winter months.