New law for converting 40k commercial diesel vehicles to CNG:CM

New Delhi, Nov 6 (UNI) Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit today said her Government would soon bring a legislation to convert 40,000 commercial diesel vehicles into CNG to decrease air pollution in the capital.

Speaking at a seminar on air, water and noise pollution on the eve of Diwali at Delhi Secretariat, Ms Dikshit further said the number of vehicles are increasing day-by-day, which shows the prosperity of the citizens but is increasing the pollution.

She also said that widespread use of fire crackers increase air pollution by over ten times and push up noise pollution as much as 10 dB(AI).

This leads to Asthma, bronchitis, heart attacks, deafness due to noise pollution beyond the limit of 125 dB(AI).

She said Department of Environment has been conducting "Anti-Fire Crackers Campaigns" with theme "Say No to Crackers" for the last eight years.

Several eco-club schools, colleges, RWAs, MTAs, NGOs, Corporate, Hospitals etc are participating in this campaign.

The Chief Minister said that results of past years have shown that there has been reduction in air and noise pollution levels during Diwali. ''This indicates that awareness about bad impact of crackers has increased as a large section of people particularly, the Eco-club students, have contributed to bring about this change,'' she said.

She said 56 hospitals having 100 bed or more have been declared as silence zone.

As part of measures to raise awareness, 40 'nukkad nataks' (street plays) are being conducted during this Diwali and rallies are being held by various eco-club schools, she said.

Monitoring of air and noise pollution will be conducted on pre and during Diwali nights at 40 locations by Delhi Pollution Control Committee, Ms Dikshit added.

She said the Environment Department would chalk out a plan to put signage on all busy intersections with the message of switching of the engine of the vehicle at the red light so that air-pollution may be decreased.

She also appealed to citizens not to burn leaves to curb air pollution.

UNI