Centre, state governments failed to provide better air quality: Environmentalist

In the wake of rising levels of air pollution in the national capital, environmentalist Vimlendu Jha on Wednesday said both the Centre as well as the state government have failed to provide better air quality in Delhi.

"Good news is the courts have taken cognizance of the situation. Bad news is that this is the responsibility of the state and it should not be the court that should actually be held responsible or should come to our rescue. We have elected governments in different states. We have elected government at the Centre and they are the ones who are responsible for better air quality, better firm governance, better vehicular governance and they have indeed failed," Jha told ANI.

Expressing displeasure over the fact that the Supreme Court and the National Green Tribunal has to actually intervene on day to day issues of governance, Jha said the situation that we are in today is the responsibility of respective state governments and the Central Government and they all have totally failed and that's why the air pollution levels have peaked.

"Although we see a little bit of improvement in visible air quality but otherwise if you actually look at all the air quality indicators, air quality still remains very poor to severe statistics in most areas. The Supreme Court has clearly asked the Central Government to come up with a common minimum programme in terms of air pollution in next 48 hours because the Central Government has not been able to really mobilise all the states to bring them all on one table and look at tangible solutions," he added.

The Supreme Court yesterday defined pollution in Delhi as "dreaded", "severe" and "disaster", and asked Centre to response on its policy to tackle pollution.

The apex court also noted down the suggestions made by Sunita Narain, the Environment Pollution Control Authority (EPCA) to come up with a Common Minimum Programme in next two days to come with a solution to tackle the situation.

Delhi Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung earlier on Monday ordered to de-registrar old diesel vehicles to counter smog levels that touched an alarming level after Diwali celebrations.