Major boost to fight against pollution

NEW DELHI: The AAP government on Thursday presented a “green Budget” which is aimed at controlling pollution and monitoring its impact on the environment.

The city government announced 26 separate programmes under four different departments of environment, transport, power and PWD for devising a unified system of pollution control, bringing down levels of different pollutants

The initiatives include studying the possibility of using technology to ascertain the source of air pollution at designated spots in collaboration with the University of Washington, developing a model for forecasting of air pollution scenario and setting up 1,000 indoor display panels in government buildings to provide information on air pollution levels

It also included projects like a subsidy of up to Rs 5,000 per tandoor to restaurants to replace coal tandoors with electricity or gas based tandoors, procuring 1,000 electric buses, introduction of 905 feeder electric buses meant for last mile connectivity from Metro stations.

Deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia said that the 26 projects will have a per year estimated reduction in emissions like carbon dioxide, particulate matter (PM) 2.5, nitrogen oxides, etc.

“In the process of preparing the green Budget, we realised that no city in India, including Delhi, has an annual emissions inventory of all key air pollutants, nor do we have an access to a real-time information on contributing factors,” he said, adding that Delhi will become the first city to carry out a real-time source apportionment study and analysis of factors causing pollution.

Further, to encourage people to switch to cleaner fuels from petrol or diesel, the government will provide a 50 per cent concession in registration charges for CNG factory fitted private cars and will also give a subsidy on purchase of electric cars. A one-time subsidy of Rs 30,000 to e-rickshaw owners was also announced.

The government will also offer an incentive to industries in approved industrial areas of up to Rs 1 lakh to switch over to piped natural gas from existing polluting fuels.

In order to curb pollution from diesel generator sets and discourage their use, the government will also offer a subsidy to various firms and establishments of up to Rs 30,000 to switch over to clean fuel based electricity generator sets.