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BJP attacks AAP, says govt not doing enough to check bad air in Delhi
BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma said that Safar (System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting And Research) has reported the AQI in Delhi improved on Friday, despite the contribution of stubble burning to the city’s PM 2.5 pollutant load, shooting up.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday attacked the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in Delhi by claiming they had not done enough to tackle the problem of poor air quality in the national capital.
BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma said that Safar (System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting And Research) has reported the AQI in Delhi improved on Friday, despite the contribution of stubble burning to the city’s PM 2.5 pollutant load, shooting up.
This conforms the finding of an IIT-Kanpur study of 2015, which stated that the main factors that contribute to air pollution in Delhi are road dust (38%) vehicles (20%) and domestic sources (12%).
“This means 70% of Delhi’s air pollution woes are due to local factors. Why does the Delhi government then always shift blame to Punjab and Haryana or the Central government for pollution management,” she said.
Also Read: Farm fires contributing 22% to Delhi’s PM 2.5 load, shows data
Sharma said the Centre, apart from earmarking ₹1,600 crore this year to tackle the problem of air pollution in Delhi-NCR, had also cracked down on stubble burning, besides undertaking other steps like closing the Badarpur and Panipat Thermal Power Plant,switching from BS4 to BS6 fuel and backing innovation of Pusa decomposer for crop residue etc.
This is in addition to the multiple meetings by the Union environment minister Prakash Javadekar with minister of the five states — Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, UP and Rajasthan — to find a solution to the problem.
Also Read| Behind Delhi’s polluted air: Early stubble fires, weather
“The Delhi government allocated a meagre ₹52 crore in its ₹65,000 crore budget for environment and spent nil from the ₹787 crore that it received from the environment cess it received in 2017, However, the same government spent upwards of ₹73 crore on advertisements and self promotion in the months of July and August only,” Sharma claimed.
The AAP did not respond to requests for a comment.
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