AAP creating confusion by blaming farmers for pollution in Delhi: Congress

Delhi Congress took a swipe at AAP-led Delhi government for creating confusion among people and blaming farmers for the severe air pollution

The Delhi Congress on Monday took a swipe at the Aam Aadmi Party-led Delhi government for creating confusion among people and blaming farmers for the severe air pollution and asked about the update on the report which was supposed to be carried out in association with Washington University.

Addressing a press conference, Delhi Congress chief Chaudhary Anil Kumar said, "The Delhi government, in association with the Washington University, were to prepare a report on the reasons for Delhi's pollution by monitoring the pollution levels for two hours every day and submit the report by March 2020, which were to be implemented by June, 2020."

"But there is no sign of the report as yet, and the Arvind Kejriwal government has not announced the reason for delay in the project report. Instead, the city government was falsely blaming the farmers for Delhi's pollution," he said.

The Congress leader accused the Kejriwal government of trying to create confusion and fear among the people by blaming the farmers for the severe air pollution through stubble burning, without admitting to the fact that a major source of pollution in Delhi was vehicular traffic.

He said how could the AAP government blame the farmers for the national capital's pollution woes as the stubble burning barely lasts for 15 days while air pollution has become a permanent feature in Delhi, which peaks to dangerous levels at the onset of winter.

Citing the EPCA report on the pollution data of the winter season of 2019, the Congress leader said that the Kejriwal government has been saying that 70 per cent pollution comes from stubble burning, which is wrong, as the truth is that it barely goes beyond 15 per cent, that too for barely 10 days.

He also pointed out that two major studies were conducted by IIT Delhi in 2015 and NGO Energy Resource Institute in 2018 to find out the reasons for pollution levels going up in Delhi for the past few years. "And both these studies concluded that vehicular traffic, which contributes 41 per cent, was the major source of pollution, while industry adds 18.60 per cent and dust 21.5 per cent to the pollution quotient," he said.

He also slammed the city government for not taking steps to improve public transport as the DTC fleet, which had 4,885 buses when the AAP government took charge in Delhi, has only 3,600 buses left now.

--IANS

aks/kr