Avoid fires, provide heaters to security staff, Delhi RWAs told

The Delhi government on Tuesday advised individual house owners and representatives of all Residential Welfare Associations (RWAs) to provide electric heaters to the security staff during winters to avoid them setting up open fires.

House owners and RWAs have been asked to lend a hand in controlling air pollution by providing electric heaters to the security staff so as to discourage them for burning waste in open for keeping themselves warm, an official statement said.

It said Environment Minister Imran Hussain convened a meeting of senior officers of Environment Department and Delhi Pollution Control Committee to review action taken for implementation of Graded Response Action Plan for air quality.

Apart from crop residue burning in fields of neighbouring states, open burning of bio-mass -- leaves, wood, coal, garbage and other waste material -- has been identified as one of the sources of air pollution in Delhi.

The statement noted that the Supreme Court, High Court and National Green Tribunal have passed several orders in the various cases for controlling of air pollution in the capital.

The Minister appealed to the citizens to take all the steps to minimize the local contribution in emission by using public transport and by keeping a close watch on burning of garbage and waste material.

It was the 52nd day on Tuesday since the time, the region has been bereft of clean air. Even though few areas in Delhi-NCR fell out of the "severe plus or "emergency" category to "severe", the ambient air quality remained "very poor".

According to the monitoring agencies and latest forecast by the India Meteorological Department (IMD), the air quality is expected to remain "very poor" for at least till Sunday (December 3).

--IANS

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