Arvind Kejriwal Calls Emergency Meeting

New Delhi, Nov. 13: Minutes after the Supreme Court demanded an emergency plan on Delhi’s alarming air quality from the centre, signalling the scale of the crisis, the capital city’s Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal called an urgent meeting to discuss the situation.

Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, Health Minister Satyendar Jain, Environment Minister Gopal Rai and the Chief Secretary will be attending the meeting, a Delhi government spokesperson said.

The move came after the Supreme Court asked the central government a series of tough questions including whether it was considering a two-day lockdown to tackle the plunging air quality.

Earlier on Friday, the country’s central pollution control board ordered states and local bodies to be in “complete readiness” for emergency measures to tackle New Delhi’s worsening smog conditions due to a drop in temperature and wind speeds.

A thick haze of toxic smog hung over the capital, that has been recording the worst air quality levels of the season, exacerbated by a spike in the burning of crop waste in surrounding farmlands.

It reduced visibility and the Air Quality Index (AQI) hit 470 on a scale of 500, according to the Central Pollution Control Board or CPCB. This level of pollution means the air will affect healthy people and seriously impact those with existing diseases.

According to the pollution board’s “Graded Response Action Plan”, air quality remaining “severe” for 48 hours must prompt states and local bodies to impose emergency measures that include shutting down schools, imposing ‘odd-even’ restrictions on private cars based on their number plates, and stopping all construction.

In a circular late on Friday, the board said the government and private offices should reduce the use of private transport by 30 per cent and advised the city’s residents to limit outdoor exposure.

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“Meteorological conditions will be highly unfavourable for dispersion of pollutants till November 18, 2021 in view of low winds with calm conditions during the night,” the board said.

Earlier this week, authorities had ordered a shutdown of brick kilns, increased the frequency of mechanised cleaning and a crackdown on garbage burning and dust.

The concentration of poisonous PM2.5 particulate matter averaged 329 micrograms per cubic meter of air. The government prescribes a “safe” PM2.5 reading at 60 micrograms per cubic meter of air over a period of 24 hours.

PM2.5 is small enough to travel deep into the lungs, enter the bloodstream and can cause severe respiratory diseases, including lung cancer.

The government’s efforts to reduce crop-waste burning, a major source of air pollution during winter, by spending billions of rupees over the past four years have done little to avert a sharp deterioration in air quality.

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