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Punjab actively needs to curb farm fires: Khattar on surging pollution levels
Khattar was in Karnal, his Lok Sabha constituency, to chair multiple events and inaugurate several projects on his day-long visit. After chairing a meeting of the District Development Coordination and Monitoring Committee at Mini Secretariat, the minister spoke to the media on a range of issues.
Union power minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Tuesday expressed concern over the surging pollution levels in the country and said that though Haryana has worked well in curbing the cases of stubble burning, Punjab still needs to work more.
Khattar was in Karnal, his Lok Sabha constituency, to chair multiple events and inaugurate several projects on his day-long visit. After chairing a meeting of the District Development Coordination and Monitoring Committee at Mini Secretariat, the minister spoke to the media on a range of issues.
On air pollution, Khattar said that the Supreme Court had ordered the implementation of GRAP-IV measures to tackle pollution in the Delhi-NCR and both Centre and state governments are working tirelessly in the same direction.
“Other than stubble burning, emissions from transport and dust from construction activities also contribute to pollution. We should all work without blame games. Haryana has worked well in curbing the cases of stubble burning, Punjab must also be working but still there are more cases. The Punjab CM claimed that there are less cases in his state, but data suggests otherwise. We should work together,” he added.
Validating his point with figures, the minister said that Punjab is reporting stubble cases more than eight times than Haryana, where Punjab added 9,655 cases till November 18, there were only 1,118 cases in Haryana for the same period since September 15.
The former Haryana chief minister also criticised Punjab political leaders for objecting to Chandigarh administration’s move to give Haryana land for its new assembly building.
He said that as per this administrative process for land exchange, a pending environment clearance has been received with pending final agreement and a land of 12 acres is being given instead of 10 acres earlier.
“Punjab leaders have nothing to object to this. In our assembly, there will be a space crunch in the coming days. There are currently 90 members that are likely to increase to 126 after delimitation. I suggested Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann that he can also take land from Chandigarh in a similar process in exchange of land in Mohali or other districts. This has happened in the past as well and we are not getting land from Chandigarh for free,” Khattar added.
The minister later also inaugurated the newly built 11-feet statue of Antariksha Pari Kalpana Chawla, first Indian woman to fly to space, at the Kalpana Chawla Government Medical College and Hospital constructed at a cost of ₹35 lakh
Khattar also opened multi-purpose hall at Bal Bhawan built at a cost of ₹2 crore, statues of former BJP president Dr Mangal Sen at Mangal Sen auditorium and Bhagwan Parshuram at Karan Canal.
He also chaired a party meeting at district BJP office to review the ongoing membership drive.
