As per the Central Pollution Control Board data, Delhi’s air has been as polluted and lethal over the past fortnight as it was before the introduction of CNG in 2001, report Chetan Chauhan.
Delhi’s air has been as polluted and lethal over the past fortnight as it was before the introduction of CNG in 2001, according to daily data released by the country’s pollution watchdog.
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The Central Pollution Control Board data has shocked experts who blamed the undoing on the rising number of private vehicles on the roads. They predicted that this year’s winter could be the worst in the past six years due to smog and problems that come with it.
Sunita Narain, a member of the Environment Protection Control Authority, said: “All CNG gains have been lost by inaction on the part of government... and sheer exploitation of air quality by huge registration of private vehicles.” Over 1,000 vehicles are registered in Delhi every day and 30 per cent of them run on diesel, which emit five times more respirable suspended particular matter (RSPM) and nitrogen oxide than those run on petrol. Before 2001, about 500 vehicles used to be registered a day and only two per cent were run on diesel.
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Although RSPM, which causes breathing problems and asthma attacks, had been rising since 2005, it touched the levels of 2001 during the past fortnight with average being 270-350 unit grams in an area of cubic metre.
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Although RSPM, which causes breathing problems and asthma attacks, had been rising since 2005, it touched the levels of 2001 during the past fortnight with average being 270-350 unit grams in an area of cubic metre.
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The man who introduced CNG in Delhi, MoS for Urban Development Ajay Maken, admitted it was back to square one. He said: “First, we need to strengthen our public transport system so that people can get an alternate mode of transport.”
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.
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