Pollution: DDC signs MoU with think tank

To tackle air pollution, Delhi government’s Dialogue and Development Commission (DDC) Thursday entered into a strategic partnership with an independent think-tank to suggest and analyse policy and legal framework to address air pollution in Delhi-NCR.

DDC vice chairman Jasmine Shah said the Delhi government has shown political will to tackle air pollution by coming up with solutions such as the odd-even road rationing scheme for vehicles, launching an electric vehicle policy, and a successful experiment of the ‘Pusa bio-decomposer’ solution to tackle stubble burning.

“Through this collaboration with Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, we hope to work on the next generation of solutions to further reduce air pollution in Delhi,” he added.

Vidhi does legal research and engages with the Central and state governments, the judiciary and other public institutions on policy-making.

As per the Memorandum of Understanding signed by the two institutions on Thursday, Vidhi will work closely with the DDC to suggest policy and legal reforms to tackle air pollution in Delhi and NCR region. Vidhi will also help the DDC in analysing various directions passed by the courts and authorities on air pollution in the region, the Delhi government statement said.

Arghya Sengupta, founder of Vidhi, said the institution was working on the issue of air pollution since a few years and had published a report called ‘Cleaning Delhi’s Air’ in 2017.