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Health care programmes will go haywire if pollution not controlled: SC
Children already born and those who are yet to be born are all being adversely impacted by air pollution, the court said.
Expressing concern over the rising levels of air pollution in Delhi, a bench of the Supreme Court of India said the government’s “health care programmes will go haywire if air pollution is not controlled”.
A bench headed by Justice Madan B Lokur observed, “All your health care programmes will go haywire if pollution is not controlled. People will keep falling sick because of pollution”.
The court made these observations while hearing a case related to pollution during which the ministry of environment, forest and climate change informed it that pollution emission standards for several categories of industries in the Delhi-National Capital Region (NCR) had been notified.
Justice Lokur said,”Even Amitabh Bhachan has been coming on TV saying that 13 of the top 20 polluted cities are in India, the govt has accepted the problem... The solutions should not be too little too late..”
“Children already born and those who are yet to be born are all being adversely impacted by air pollution,” Justice Lokur added.
On the ban on pet coke, the Centre told the bench that there was a deficit in the availability of pet coke domestically and consultations were going with the ministry of petroleum and natural gas (MoPNG) on this.
Appearing for the Centre, ANS Nadkarni said the use of pet coke may be allowed in calcium carbide-based industries as per the recommendations of the Central Pollution Control Board.
On the issue of providing natural gas to power plants, the Oil and National Gas Corporation (ONGC) said it was willing to cut its profits and reduce transport charge for gas to the Bawana power plant. The plant is working at 20% of its capacity since gas was not being fully supplied.
The ONGC said that by reducing its profits and other charges, gas will become cheaper and would be supplied to Bawana, allowing its one unit to work at full capacity.
The bench asked the government to come out with a notification on the remaining issues within three weeks.
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