Delhi Congress president Devender Yadav on Sunday alleged Delhi Environment Minister Gopal Rai is making a new excuse as the Delhi government failed to put in place plans to tackle the air pollution during the winter months in the city.

Yadav alleged that when the Congress was in power in Punjab, the AAP government blamed the state for stubble burning resulting in Delhi’s air becoming toxic.

But once the AAP came to power in Punjab, Rai swiftly shifted the blame of stubble burning to Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Haryana making the capital’s air toxic, he added.

Yadav further lashed the AAP government, calling it incompetent in addressing the real causes for Delhi’s air pollution, which includes dust from broken roads and streets, regular construction works and pollution from vehicular fumes.

He also criticized Gopal Rai’s Winter Action Plan and said that the minister is restricted only to writing to the Union Environmental Ministry to convene an urgent meeting to discuss the possibility of cloud seeding and seeks the co-operation of everyone in combating pollution, but does not take any concrete step to fix the broken roads and streets in the Capital.

Commenting upon the government’s idea of setting up more smoke towers in the city, Yadav said that the already operational smog tower served no purpose in combating pollution. The high operational cost of the tower forced the operating agency to shut it down, he added.

Yadav said that it was time the AAP Government took decisive steps to check the toxic air in Delhi, which remained at a very high level, even after the capital received sufficient monsoon rains in the past two months.

On the idea of artificial rain, Yadav said that even during monsoon, the pollution was high, so the logic of cloud seeding will not help in preventing the winter pollution.

He added that until the Delhi Government takes firm steps to address the root cause of air pollution, people will continue to suffer, and Ministers like Gopal Rail will continue to invent new excuses to cover up their incompetence in solving Delhi’s problems.