Pollution: HC summons senior officials over non-compliance of

Several senior officials of civic bodies and government departments here were today directed by the Delhi High Court to appear before it for "failure" to comply with its order to remove debris and traffic congestion from Anand Vihar to improve the air quality in that area.
A bench of Justices B D Ahmed and Ashutosh Kumar said that despite directions issued to the authorities concerned, they "failed" to take up the matter on a war footing to ensure that traffic management at Anand Vihar is optimised and there is a free flow of vehicles.
"From the discussion before us, it appears that one of the major contributories of the very high levels of concentration of PM 2.5 and PM 10 in the Anand Vihar area was the result of chaotic traffic conditions leading to idling emissions as also on account of construction and roadside debris.

"This adds to rise in air pollution. Therefore, we have indicated measures to bring down the air pollution level. But the photos produced by the amicus curiae indicates a different story. The authorities at the ground level have done nothing," the court said.
"Therefore, before imitating contempt proceedings against the authorities and its official concerned, we would like to know from them why action be not taken against them for such behaviour," the bench said.
The commissioner of East Delhi Municipal Corporation, chief engineer of PWD of this zone, DMRC project manager, additional commissioner (traffic), senior official of northern railway and also an official from Anand Vihar bus terminal shall appear in court on February 16 and explain why necessary steps have not been taken with regard to the court's order.

The bench had on January 12 asked the agencies to remove encroachments from public roads, debris and optimise the traffic management.

These steps were asked to be carried out in order after it was conveyed that levels of harmful pollutants that people are exposed to in east Delhi's Anand Vihar were recently found to be two to four times higher than the air pollution levels in other part of Delhi, which are several times more than the standard.
Taking note of this, the bench had directed the bodies to immediately take up the matter of air pollution on a war footing to ensure that the traffic at Anand Vihar is smooth and all the encroachers from the road be removed "forthwith".

The high court had issued the directions during hearing of a PIL initiated on its own on the issue of alarming levels of air pollution in the national capital.