NGT seeks diesel vehicle count in 15 most polluted cities

The National Green Tribunal on Tuesday directed ten states to provide the number of diesel vehicles plying in the country’s 15 most polluted cities.

The National Green Tribunal on Tuesday directed ten states to provide the number of diesel vehicles plying in the country’s 15 most polluted cities.

The NGT’s principal bench asked the chief secretaries of Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Punjab to provide the number of diesel vehicles . (Parveen Kumar/HT file)

Hearing a case to extend a Supreme Court-mandated ban on diesel vehicles more than 10 years old or more than 2,000 cc capacity, the tribunal’s principal bench, headed by Justice (retd.) Swantater Kumar asked the chief secretaries of Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Punjab to submit these details at earliest.

The 15 most polluted cities identified in a new list by the Central Pollution Control Board are Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Patna, Lucknow, Allahabad, Kanpur, Varanasi, Nagpur, Chennai, Hyderabad, Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Amritsar and Pune.

Read: Diesel car ban: NGT seeks report from all states on pollution levels