- The Delhi government has launched a 'green war room' to combat air pollution in the national capital through 24*7 hours of monitoring.
- This step is a part of Chief Minister's 15-point Winter Action Plan, announced on 29th September 2023, which aims to curb pollution from vehicle emissions, dust, industrial sources, and crop burning.
- The Delhi Government will also launch Anti-Dust Campaign on 5th October, 2023.
About:-
- The war room will function all day and all night and will consist of a team of 17 members, which includes engineers and scientists from the state environment department and the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC).
- The DPCC senior environment scientists Nandita Moitra has been appointed as the in-charge of the 17-member war room.
- Out of 17-members, 13 have been appointed as nodal officers, one for each of Delhi's 13 pollution hotspots.
- These 13 will remain in the war room to track progress and air quality, sometime will carry out field visits of these hotspots as per requirement.
- The 13 pollution hotspots in Delhi were identified in 2018 by DPCC and Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), namely, Anand Vihar, Mundka, Wazirpur, Jahangirpuri, RK Puram, Rohini, Punjabi Bagh, Okhla, Bawana, Vivek Vihar, Narela, Ashok Vihar and Dwarka.
- The room will also track farm fires through satellite imagery from the American Space Agency NASA.
- By the help of this, speedy redressal of complaints can be carried out on the "Green Delhi" mobile application where citizens can report violations of anti-pollution norms.
- A total of 70,684 complaints have been received on this app out of which 90% has been resolved.
- The Air Quality Index (AQI) of Delhi was 155 on October 2023, falling in the moderate range.
- Vehicles dominate to the real-time pollution source contribution to Delhi's particulate pollution.
Source - Down To Earth