Make green fight a mass movement: Delhi environment minister Gopal Rai

NEW DELHI: Delhi’s newly appointed environment minister, Gopal Rai, held a high-level meeting with officials of Delhi Pollution Control Committee and Delhi government’s environment and forest departments on Thursday.
The meeting was intended to impress on the officials the need to make environment a mass movement so that the promises made in Arvind Kejriwal’s pre-election ‘Guarantee Card’ could be fulfilled.These include planting two crore saplings, cleaning the Yamuna and reducing pollution levels by a third.
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At Thursday’s meeting, the government decided on four immediate steps. “Obtaining real-time data is the first priority,” Rai said. “For this, I will visit the office of Washington University near India Gate on Friday to understand the process of obtaining real-time data.” The second priority is sewage treatment plants created by Delhi Jal Board to detect, treat and monitor pollution in the Yamuna. “I will be visiting an STP at Delhi Gate to see its functioning," the minister said.
The meeting proposed a roundtable meeting on February 27, where experts, NGOs and environmentalists would discuss air pollution. There, Rai said, he would invite suggestions for Delhi government to consider when it is formulating a long-term action plan to clear the city’s air. The fourth step will be an interaction with greening agencies on February 28 to help determine how 40 lakh trees can be planted each year for five years.
“During the Delhi Assembly elections, CM Arvind Kejriwal ji had made a significant promise to reduce by one-third the pollution in Delhi and another to plant two crore trees in the city over five years,” Rai said. “To achieve this, we cannot rely solely on the government. We need the help of the people. Environment needs to be made into a mass movement in which every individual is a contributor. We will hold meetings with various departments to come up with a long-term action plan on how we can create this movement and involve the people.”
Rai said an action team needed to be formulated to oversee the effort. “In Delhi, the coordination of several agencies is important, and an action team can guide such a coordination,” he explained.
The environment minister conceded that people complied with but did not accept the rationale for the odd-even road rationing exercise because they felt that vehicular emissions was not a major component of Delhi’s air pollution. “Many felt dust and stubble-burning were the biggest contributors to dirty air,” he said. “The problem is we need real-time data to identify exactly what the biggest sources of pollution at any given time are to enable us to tackle them accordingly. Our tie-up with Washington University for real-time data will provide us a report by March this year and we can then measure our actions as well as the impact of each action.”
Rai claimed that various measures undertaken in the last five years, such as 24-hour power supply, increased greenery and the construction of the Eastern-Western Peripheral Expressway had helped Delhi. He also opined that the odd-even measure had sensitised people and impacted thinking.