Arvind Kejriwal launches road greening drive

New Delhi, Mar 31: Delhi's roads are set to get a green makeover with Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal today launching a drive for greeening and vaccum cleaning of roads.

Kejriwal inaugurated the Greening Delhi initiative here, and said the move will deal with road dust, which is one of the major sources of air pollution in the national capital.

A senior government official said that bald patches of roads will be greened to reduce the pollution caused by road dust. Kejriwal further said that the vacuum cleaning of the roads will also begin from tomorrow so that no dust will cause air pollution in the capital. "Congrats Delhi.

Vacuum cleaning and greening of PWD roads begins. Greening will complete by Oct, vacuum cleanin on all roads in 2 months," he tweeted. Making a political pitch ahead of municipal polls set to be held next year, the Delhi Chief Minister said his government was cleaning 1,260 km roads of PWD and next year, it would clean MCD's roads after winning municipal polls.

While announcing the first phase of odd-even scheme in December last year, government had announced that it would carry out vacuum cleaning of roads, aimed at bringing down the level of dust kicked up during sanitation routines that contribute a lot to air pollution, especially during summer.

The decision, part of a series of measures announced by the government along with the odd-even car rationing formula, was approved by the Cabinet in February this year authorising the Public Works Department to switch to the advanced method of cleaning.

PTI