Pollution levels in city, Yamuna take centre stage in Delhi Assembly

AAP legislators posed questions to environment minister Imran Hussain on steps taken by the Delhi government to control pollution levels.

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AAP legislators posed questions to environment minister Imran Hussain on steps taken by the Delhi government to control pollution levels.

With the capital’s air quality deteriorating due to smog conditions, the debate over rising pollution levels took centre stage in the Delhi Assembly Friday.

AAP legislators Rajesh Gupta, Anil Kumar Bajpai, Nitin Tyagi and Kailash Gahlot, posed questions to environment minister Imran Hussain on steps taken by the Delhi government to control pollution levels.

In his reply, Hussain said air quality is being monitored and its online monitoring would be given a further push.

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He added that the government is in the process of determining the “levels” of different pollutants and the reasons. For this, the environment department has asked IIT Kanpur to submit a detailed report.

The government also said as per air quality monitoring, Anand Vihar is the worst affected.

Gupta then asked the minister if the government is considering a subsidy to those industries which manufacture products that can be recycled. Hussain said there is no such proposal as of now.

The legislators also raised the issue of rising pollution levels in the Yamuna. The government said the Delhi Jal Board has proposed to construct a 59-km long interceptor sewer which would be set up in areas that do not have sewer lines. These include Shahdara, Najafgarh and Seelampur.

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The interceptor sewer would then carry polluted water to the nearest sewage treatment plant and discharge it back into the main drains before they meet the Yamuna, the minister replied.

The government also said it would spend Rs 378 crore to clean up the river, of which Rs 350 crore would be set aside exclusively for setting up the sewer.

Kaunain Sheriff M

Kaunain Sheriff M is an award-winning investigative journalist and the National Health Editor at The Indian Express. He is the author of Johnson & Johnson Files: The Indian Secrets of a Global Giant, an investigation into one of the world’s most powerful pharmaceutical companies. With over a decade of experience, Kaunain brings deep expertise in three areas of investigative journalism: law, health, and data. He currently leads The Indian Express newsroom’s in-depth coverage of health. His work has earned some of the most prestigious honours in journalism, including the Ramnath Goenka Award for Excellence in Journalism, the Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA) Award, and the Mumbai Press Club’s Red Ink Award. Kaunain has also collaborated on major global investigations. He was part of the Implant Files project with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which exposed malpractices in the medical device industry across the world. He also contributed to an international investigation that uncovered how a Chinese big-data firm was monitoring thousands of prominent Indian individuals and institutions in real time. Over the years, he has reported on several high-profile criminal trials, including the Hashimpura massacre, the 2G spectrum scam, and the coal block allocation case. Within The Indian Express, he has been honoured three times with the Indian Express Excellence Award for his investigations—on the anti-Sikh riots, the Vyapam exam scam, and the abuse of the National Security Act in Uttar Pradesh. ... Read More

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