Peripheral expressways helped reduce pollution in Delhi; grateful to Centre: Kejriwal

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Friday said he was "grateful" to the Centre for peripheral expressways that helped in bringing down pollution levels in Delhi.

Speaking at an event here, the Chief Minister said over 40 thousand trucks, a contributor to the pollution, did not enter the national capital as they took the Eastern and Western Peripheral Expressways.

"We are grateful to the Central government for the Eastern and Western Peripheral Expressway. This measure has stopped 30 to 40 thousand trucks from entering Delhi," he said while discussing ideas on curbing pollution levels in Delhi.

The Chief Minister also said that saplings plantation and industries' move to use non-polluting PNG fuel have contributed to reducing pollutions levels in the national capital. "However, it needs to reduce more," he said.

Kejriwal stressed on the need to check on local sources of pollution. "Delhi has local sources of pollution. We are worried about people's health. Stubble burning mostly starts from October 15 and we have no control over it," he said.

He said that state and Central governments are yet to fully know about the sources of pollution. "Nobody knows what (source) the problem is-- neither the state nor the Centre," he added.

The Delhi government has recently launched a project called Real-time source apportionment jointly with the Department of Energy, Environment and Chemical Engineering, University of Washington to study the sources of pollution in Delhi.

A laboratory will set for this purpose which would give real-time data every four hours throughout the day from April 1, 2020.