SC to hear plea on rising air pollution today

New Delhi, Nov 17: The Supreme Court will continue to hear a plea on the deteriorating pollution levels in Delhi-NCR today. The apex court is hearing a plea filed by environmental activist Aditya Dubey and law student Aman Banka, who sought directions to provide stubble-removing machines to small and marginal farmers for free.

Centre told SC that instead of WFH order, it has advised its employees in Delhi to resort to car pooling to reduce the number of vehicles used by them for commutation.

Centre says it found that number of vehicles used by centra government is a minuscule fraction of the total vehicles in Delhi and stopping their plying would not make much impact towards improving air quality of Delhi.

Centre tells SC in an affidavit that it was not asking central government employees to work from home as normalisation is returning after a long hiatus due to pandemic, when most officials worked from home. SC is scheduled to hear the matter at 10.30 am.

The city's air quality was again in the 'severe' category with the 24-hour average AQI recorded at 403 after remaining in the 'very poor' category till Tuesday morning, when the AQI was recorded at 396. An AQI between zero and 50 is considered 'good', 51 and 100 'satisfactory', 101 and 200 'moderate', 201 and 300 'poor', 301 and 400 'very poor', and 401 and 500 'severe'.

The CAQM has directed Delhi and the NCR states to stop construction and demolition activities in the region till November 21, barring railway services/railway stations, metro rail corporation services, including stations, airports and inter-state bus terminals (ISBTS) and national security/defence-related activities/ projects of national importance subject to strict compliance of the C&D Waste Management Rules and dust control norms. Trucks carrying non-essential items have been banned from entering Delhi till Sunday in a bid to contain the spiralling air pollution levels.