Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal today quoted Delhi city
as a ‘gas chamber’ soon after Supreme Court panel declared a public health
emergency in Delhi-NCR. The air quality on Thursday night reached severe-plus
levels in Delhi-NCR while school children were given breathing masks.
The region of Delhi-NCR has been struggling with rising
pollution levels since Diwali. Environment Pollution (Prevention and
Control) Authority banned construction activities till November 5 as the
pollution level in the NCR region entered the ‘severe-plus’ or ‘emergency’
category for the first time since January.
The air quality deteriorated further Thursday night which the public has to take a health emergency since it will have an adverse health impact on all. Blaming the neighbouring states Haryana and Punjab, CM Arvind Kejriwal said that thousands of farmers have been burning crop stubble sending fumes of smokes across northern India.
The CM also mentioned that if the ‘severe plus’ state of the
region persists for more than 48 hours, emergency measures such as odd-even car
rationing scheme, truck entry bans and shutting down schools are to be taken
under the Graded Response Action Plan.
Most of the population have been spotted wearing masks on the
streets of Delhi-NCR to avoid inhaling the hazardous polluted air.
Following CM Arvind Kejriwal’s accusations to neighbouring
states, Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar accused Kejriwal of
playing blame-game over increasing pollution levels. "Instead of
blaming Punjab and Haryana, he would think about (Prime Minister Narendra)
Modi-Ji's proposal to curb pollutants produced by industries in five states (near
Delhi),” said Javadekar.