Grap fines down by 67%, officials cite strategy change

Data obtained from the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) shows that the number of fines issued for violations of the Graded Response Action Plan (Grap) has

Data obtained from the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) shows that the number of fines issued for violations of the Graded Response Action Plan (Grap) has decreased by around 67% this year.

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For greater supervision this year, the MCG had introduced several new measures — forming civil defence teams to monitor Grap violations, starting an air lab for analysing data of the city’s 24 air quality monitors to identify and concentrate enforcement measures on areas where Grap violations are suspected to be the highest, and setting deadlines for its officials to address citizen complaints.

However, MCG officials attributed the decline in the number of fines to a change in strategy. They said that instead of focusing solely on enforcement, as has been the case in previous years, they have introduced several other new measures that, in the long-term, would prove to be far more beneficial.

From October 15 to December 1 this year, the MCG has issued 267 fines for Grap violations. In the same time period last year, the MCG had issued 750 fines.

“We realised that enforcement alone cannot curb air pollution. Hence, this year, we have taken a different approach. We have built an air lab, increased mechanised road sweeping activities, as well as sprinkling of water through water tankers at high dust accumulation stretches. Further, through the incorporation of citizen volunteers into civil defence teams for checking Grap violations, we are anticipating that the overall supervision and enforcement measures would be much higher than in the past,” said Vinay Pratap Singh, commissioner, MCG.

On October 15, MCG opened an air lab at its Sector 42 office to constantly monitor air quality data from its 24 monitors, which has helped officials check for localised pollution based on hourly readings, said officials.

On October 17, MCG had set a four-hour deadline for its officials to address complaints related to garbage burning and a 12-hour deadline for any construction and demolition (C&D) waste-related issues.

On October 28, the MCG deployed civil defence teams, comprising around 60 resident volunteers, to travel across the city to identify Grap violations and alert the civic body for action.

Of the 267 fines, 27 were for garbage burning, 23 related to C&D waste, 195 pertaining to dust mitigation, 17 for illegal dumping of waste and five for ferrying construction materials in vehicles without proper covering.

The MCG has recovered fines worth around Rs 57 lakh so far, whereas it had recovered Rs 2.49 crore from the 750 violations in the same period last year.

Abhishek Srivastava, a Gurugram-based environmental engineer, who worked as an air pollution consultant with the MCG, said that due to the coronavirus outbreak, field visits by the civic body officials may have been much lower this year and could be one of the main reasons why the number of violations is much lower than last year.

“Enforcement of Grap measures is extremely crucial in generating awareness among residents that certain activities such as waste burning, leaving construction materials uncovered, and C&D dumping are exceedingly harmful to the environment. A large number of citizens, especially those living in rural areas, are completely unaware of this. Further, through the issuance of fines, it will discourage them from repeating the violation again. Unless enforcement is done on a large scale, eliminating factors that lead to pollution at the source can never be achieved,” said Srivastava.