Two weeks after Lieutenant Governor (LG) Najeeb Jung and the Delhi government announced that nearly 12,00km of arterial roads will be vacuum cleaned as part of emergency measures to combat pollution, the Public Works Department (PWD) is yet to even procure the machines.
The air quality in the national Capital has improved slightly, but we have only nature to thank for that as the wind has picked up pace in the last few days.
Two weeks after Lieutenant Governor (LG) Najeeb Jung and the Delhi government announced that nearly 12,00km of arterial roads will be vacuum cleaned as part of emergency measures to combat pollution, the Public Works Department (PWD) is yet to even procure the machines.
Delhi Environment Minister Imran Hussain had told DNA on November 8 that the cleaning of roads would start from November 10. All major roads above 100 feet under the PWD were supposed to be vacuum-cleaned. The agency was to open tenders for 14-15 vacuum cleaners by November 10, but could not find any bidders, said a senior government official.
"We do not have any bidders. Since the Environment Department has stressed on procuring the machines through tendering, we have extended the date to November 18," he said.
It is important to note that this is not the first time that the department was unable to procure the machines. Last year, during the second phase of the odd-even scheme, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) had asked the AAP-led Delhi government to clear dust from the roads using vacuum cleaners.
The PWD had even rented a machine last year, which was used for some time but it soon stopped working, said the official. In April this year, Deputy CM Manish Sisodia announced mechanical sweeping of roads by the three municipal corporations and the PWD, but the plan never took off.
So far, only the south corporation has procured two machines on rent, with which they have swept the Dwarka region, claimed officials. The New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC), too, has two machines but one of them has been sent for repair.
"This shows how serious the government is about the measures they have been announcing. If they cannot procure machines in a year, it is difficult to say what they can do within a few weeks. This is an example of poor planning and implementation," said Vivek Chattopadhyaya, scientist at the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE).
On November 14, the NGT again directed the Delhi government and its agencies to stop manual cleaning of roads and to introduce mechanical cleaning. The green court said the manual removal of dust from roads regenerated pollution. The tribunal noted that there were seven major contributors to air pollution: construction activity and transportation of building material, burning of municipal solid waste, crop agriculture residue, vehicular pollution, dust on the roads, and industrial and power house emissions.
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