School fined, construction work stopped for flouting NGT norms

The construction of a tunnel at a redevelopment project site in Pragati Maidan has been halted and a school in south Delhi fined Rs 5 lakh for "violating" NGT norms on curbing pollution, the area's civic body said Tuesday.

Delhi's air quality nosedived to 'severe' on Tuesday, the first time this season.

"Don Bosco School in Sukhdev Vihar has been fined Rs 5 lakh for violation of NGT norms. The fine has been imposed under section 337 of the DMC Act read with section 15 of NGT Act," the SDMC said in a statement.

The violations observed over a plot of 20,000 sqm belonging to the school were "serious", it said.

Also, the construction of a tunnel by an infrastructure major at the Pragati Maidan project site has also been "stopped", the SDMC said.

"The action has been taken under section 344 (2) of the DMC Act after carrying out an inspection at the site where dust was found to be generated despite a letter of warning being issued earlier," the statement said.

It was also observed that no action was taken to prevent dust generation and the condition was helping in further worsening the quality of air, the civic body said.

At the school, the violations included buildings not being covered at construction area, construction material stored at site not fully covered, dust emission, workers at construction site not provided masks and no wind breaking walls around construction site, the SDMC said.

SDMC Commissioner Puneet Kumar Goel Tuesday chaired a meeting of heads of various departments to take stock of the present pollution situation.

He directed the zonal departments to immediately stop ongoing construction work as CPCB and NGT have instructed the suspension of construction work.

Goel also instructed the zonal deputy commissioners to identify 500 sites per zone for bursting crackers during Diwali night between 8 pm to 10 pm as per instructions of the Supreme Court.