View of smog near India Gate. Photo- Jagran
Nihal Singh, New Delhi. The national capital Delhi and the entire NCR is struggling with air pollution. Every year, various claims and announcements are made by various agencies and departments on increasing pollution, but no work is done on these at the ground level. This is the reason why claims of increasing resources to reduce pollution have been being made for many years, but these are not turning into reality.
The situation is that there is an area of 2800 kilometers which should be cleaned with mechanical road sweeping machines, but only 1400 kilometers of roads are being cleaned. Not only this, these roads are not being cleaned every day.
Cleaning is being done with these machines every day. Due to this, the administration's claims in fighting pollution against dust remain mere claims. While there is a need to invest additional resources in the air which has become dangerous, the situation is that the resources are not available in Delhi even as per the requirement.
Vehicles passing through fog in the capital.
Why not use small garbage collection machines?
This year also in Delhi, at a cost of Rs 2700 crore, MCD has announced to include about 140 Mechanical Road Sweeping (MRS) machines and 1000 small garbage lifting machines in its fleet for 10 years, but these will not be used to reduce the current air pollution.
This will be possible only in July-August next year, provided that the tender process of MCD is successful in the first attempt. If the process is not successful in the first attempt, then the issue of putting these machines on the streets of Delhi next year may also be in trouble.
At present MCD has 52 MRS in Delhi. Which run on 1400 kilometers of Public Works Department (PWD) roads wider than 60 feet. With these machines running on different roads, MCD claims that 150 tonnes of soil is cleaned every day.
At present, in the action plan given by MCD to the Central Government against air pollution, it has been said that 18 MRS will join the MCD fleet by the end of this year. This will take the total number of machines to 70.
Of these, 14 machines are being provided through the National Clean Air Program (N-CAP) while four machines are being provided under the Central Urban Development Fund. Whereas 30 to 60 feet wide roads require 70 machines. Not only this, if these machines are deployed daily for cleaning the roads, then a total of 234 machines are required but only 52 are running.
Delhi government's plan has been changing again and again
To eliminate MRS machines and dust pollution in Delhi, the plan of Delhi Government and MCD has been changing again and again. This problem is not being solved due to lack of permanency in the scheme. In the year 2023, the then AAP government had passed a decision from the cabinet that it would wash and clean the MCD roads.
When this proposal was sent to MCD by the government, MCD rejected it. Because the then Municipal Commissioner Gyanesh Bharti had described cleaning of roads as the primary duty of MCD. After this, the AAP government itself had asked MCD to get this work done in 2023-24 but that plan also did not materialize. Now the Delhi government is talking about purchasing 140 new MRS and providing 1000 garbage collection machines to the MCD, but only the future will tell when it will be able to come to fruition.
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The AAP government had only done politics in the name of pollution, whereas now all three (Centre, State and Corporation) governments together are doing concrete work against pollution. We will complete the work of purchasing the machines which was pending within the stipulated time. MCD will receive 18 machines by December 31.
-Raja Iqbal Singh, Mayor, Delhi