X

Supreme Court should monitor Delhi’s pollution level, says Sunita Narain’s plea

Delhi is under dense smog cover for the past one week

The Supreme Court on Tuesday will hear a petition on pollution cover in the national capital.

“It is a public health emergency, we hope that the Supreme Court will advise the government to take some strict measures to clean the air of Delhi,” Narain told reporters after the hearing.

The bench agreed to hear the matter after Sunita Narain from the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) told the bench that no effective implementation  had taken place despite directions from the apex court in the past one year.

During the hearing, the Environmental Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority also submitted its report to the bench.

Meanwhile, the National Green Tribunal asked the Centre and the governments of Punjab, Rajasthan and Haryana what steps they were taking to curb pollution.

“Why haven’t you started sprinkling water on roads to reduce dust?What happened to proposal of sprinkling water using helicopters?” the tribunal said, according to ANI.

Earlier, Delhi health minister Satyendra Jain said the state government will review the situation of the city till Friday and then convene a meeting to review the possibilities of bring back the Odd-Even scheme.

The Delhi government has decided to shut all the schools for the next three days, besides curbing constructions and demolitions for a total of five days. On the other hand, the union government will convene a meeting of the environment ministers from Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh to combat the rising pollution level in the national capital.

The meteorological department has predicted that there will be little improvement in the weather condition in the city in the next three days.