Promote public transport in NCR districts to control pollution, says Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath

LUCKNOW: With air pollution levels on the rise, CM Yogi Adityanath held a meeting with senior officials on Tuesday morning and directed them to promote public transport over private transport, especially in the national capital region districts. Meanwhile, the state government on Tuesday also informed the Supreme Court-appointed air monitoring committee that it was not in favour of a lockdown to control pollution levels.
“The CM has asked for planned action at a local level to deal with pollution levels, especially in areas like Noida and Ghaziabad which are adjoining Delhi where pollution levels are in the severe category. In light of that, he said that they should be encouraged to use public transport,” said a government spokesperson.
“Farmers are also to be sensitised about crop burning and told that it will harm not just them but also increase pollution,” said a government spokesperson.
Additional chief secretary (environment), Manoj Kumar, said that during the meeting with the SC-appointed committee, the government laid out the various steps it is already taking to control pollution levels and is not in favour of a lockdown. “The SC had specifically mentioned two issues on which deliberations were needed. One was a lockdown and the other is stubble burning. UP is not in favour of a lockdown as it will impact our field officers who are tasked with enforcement work. Whatever work they are doing right now will also stop. Meanwhile, we are taking other steps like sprinkling of water on medians, roads and trees, planting grass where paving has not taken place, impounding vehicles which are older than 10-15 years, cracking down on illegal disposal of construction waste etc,” he said.
An official said that UP was witnessing downward circulation of air which was bringing particulate matter from Punjab and Haryana where large scale farm fires were being reported from. The official said that UP had negligible stubble burning though recently, chief secretary RK Tiwari had written to district magistrates to crack down entirely on stubble burning.
“The problem is that the wind velocity is negligible right now and will remain so till November 20. Because of this, there is no dispersal of PM, leading to high pollution levels. Despite that, UP is still only in the very poor category of air pollution,” the official said.