By the end of February, the Ghaziabad municipal corporation will start repairing different major roads in industrial areas as a step to abate air pollution, municipal officials said, adding that they have drawn about ₹35 crore from the fifteenth finance commission (FFC) allotment and also those approved by the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) for implementing pollution abatement measures.
The district in 2020-21 received ₹120 crore from the FFC and the funds were split equally for implementing pollution abatement measures and solid waste management. Officials said the CAQM has also approved ₹15 crore for pollution abatement measures.
“We have ₹20 crore, which has remained unspent from the FFC funds. That and the funds approved by the CAQM will be utilised to improve roads in industrial areas. The tendering work will start by the end of February or beginning March. The roads need major improvement and the revamp will improve air quality,” said Nitin Gaur, municipal commissioner.
Some of the roads identified for repair are in the Sahibabad Site 4 industrial area, Bulandshahr Road industrial area, Loha Mandi and Amrit Steel Compound Industrial area, among others.
Industrialists in these areas have been complaining about bad roads since the past one and a half years. They said roads in industrial areas tend to have a lot of wear and tear owing to the plying of heavy vehicles as well as local traffic.
{{/usCountry}}Industrialists in these areas have been complaining about bad roads since the past one and a half years. They said roads in industrial areas tend to have a lot of wear and tear owing to the plying of heavy vehicles as well as local traffic.
{{/usCountry}}“The conditions are bad in almost all industrial areas in Ghaziabad. We feel embarrassed whenever foreign delegates visit our export-oriented units. We have been raising the issue with senior officials again and again. We have demanded that the roads be concreted to have a longer life,” said Rajiv Arora, general secretary of Bulandshahr Road Industrial Area.
The city has about 22 different industrial areas, said municipal officials.
“The condition of roads in industrial areas is a major concern and it is one of the major local sources of air pollution. We have been asking different agencies to get these repaired,” said Utsav Sharma, regional officer,Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board.
Ghaziabad is among the 16 “non-attainment” cities in the state of Uttar Pradesh and its pollution levels generally remain on the higher side during the onset of winter. Cities are declared “non-attainment” if they do not meet the National Ambient Air Quality Standards for particulate matter (PM10) or nitrogen dioxide (NO2) over a period of five years.
The city was ranked the second-most polluted city in the world after Bhiwadi in Rajasthan, on the World Air Quality Report in 2021. The annual report, prepared by Switzerland-based organisation IQAir, surveyed 6,475 cities across the world.
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