Need officials who are serious about tackling pollution: Environment Minister writes to Delhi CM

It added: “To deal with this serious situation of pollution, I request you to call a meeting of the National Capital Civil Services Authority soon, to appoint such officials who are sensitive towards the matter of pollution and can work actively to deal with it.”

At a press conference after the meeting, Rai said implementation of these measures is not possible if “senior officials” don’t consider the matter a priority.

“Secretaries of all departments were called. We noticed in today’s meeting that secretaries… heads of different departments… for them pollution has not become an important issue. Not a single secretary joined today’s meeting… My request to the heads of different departments is that this one month is the time to work on a war footing. I would like to tell the Chief Secretary also to depute officials for this. Until senior officials work actively, it becomes difficult to implement work in any department,” he said.

Responding to what Rai said was his absence at the meeting, Kundra said, “It is not in my notice which meeting it was. A meeting was held a few days ago where CAQM Chairman, Union Environment Minister, and Delhi Environment Minister were also present. It was a video conference and the entire course of measures were discussed at length.”

Singh and Kumar did not respond to a request for comment.

Sources in the bureaucracy, however, said there was no notice for the meeting, and neither was the Chief Secretary intimated about it. “The Chief Secretary has already issued detailed instructions and constituted Committees under the guidance of senior IAS officers… wherein detailed instructions have been issued to curb pollution in Delhi,” officials said.