Hyderabad to have clean air authority on lines of Tokyo

Hyderabad will soon have a clean air authority on the lines of Clean Authority of Tokyo.

The authority will be headed by the Chief Secretary of Telangana and would include heads of all departments.

After his recent visit to Japan, Minister for Municipal Administration K.T. Rama Rao proposed setting up of a similar authority for Hyderabad.

A preliminary meeting to work out the modalities of the proposed authority was held here Friday.

It was felt that the proposed authority should have statutory powers and that it should not be confined to air pollution but also include noise and water pollution as well in its jurisdiction.

A committee was constituted to prepare a concept note and submit it by February 15. This committee would prepare a note on the creation of a model Act, define structure and jurisdiction of the proposed authority.

The contributory factors of pollution, rules of solid waste management and the guidelines of the Tokyo clean air authority would also be studied for preparing the concept note.

Navin Mittal, Secretary, Municipal Administration, said that while the Pollution Control Board (PCB) would function as a regulatory and enforcement agency, the proposed authority would look after planning, coordination and implementation.

PCB Member-Secretary Satyanarayana Reddy briefed about the Tokyo Clean Air Authority which was set up for management of solid waste and generating power out of waste.

--IANS

ms/ruwa/vt