Next year, Delhi will publish its first “State of Environment Report”. This report will include data on all key areas such as sewage, water quality and waste collection.
The city government is likely to provide funds to municipal companies for the first time to manage road dust, potholes, and to prevent open-waste burning.
“The problem resolution process is impeded by the multiplicity of Delhi departments. It would have been much easier if it had been Nagpur, Mumbai, or Chennai. According to an official, the objective is to ensure accountability in the respective departments.
The Environment Department is currently preparing a tender to hire an agency for data collection from all the relevant departments, including municipal corporations and Delhi Jal Board, Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board and Delhi Irrigation and Flood Control Department.
According to the official, “Municipal corporations will provide data on waste generation, segregation, etc., while the Delhi Jal Board will provide data about water quality, sewage treatment, etc., and the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board information about jhuggi jhopri colonies.”
The compilation work will begin in February and be completed by March. He stated that this will be our first attempt at preparing a comprehensive report.
The Environment Department will also provide some of the Centre funds from the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP), to MCDs for road dust management and open waste burning prevention.
“This is also the first time that we will provide funds to MCDs that have complained about the lack of resources to control pollution. It will help to fix accountability,’ said the official.
Officials have revealed that the Union Environment Ministry has given Rs 11 crore to Delhi as part of NCAP to address critical gaps and improve air pollution management.
This is the first time Delhi has received funds under NCAP. NCAP is a national-level strategy to reduce PM2.5 and PM10 concentrations by 20%-30% by 2024. 2017 was the baseline year.
NCAP has allocated Rs 18.74 million to Delhi. A senior official from the Union Environment Ministry said that the first installment of Rs 11.35 crore was released earlier this year.
He said that the rest of the amount would be released once Delhi has submitted utilisation certificates for upto 60% of the first installment.
(This story was not edited by Devdiscourse staff. It is generated automatically from a syndicated feed.