Union road transport minister Nitin Gadkari on Tuesday said he does not feel like visiting Delhi due to severe air pollution here and often gives it a second thought every time before coming to the capital.
Delhi’s air pollution has been an annual affair with the onset of winter, resulting in curbs on old vehicles and closure of schools.
Speaking at an event on ‘Energy Transition and Sustainable Road Transportation’, Gadkari said, “This city is like that. If I come for two days, I catch infection. Har baar Delhi me aata hua, aisa lagta hain ki jaana chahiye ki nahi. Itna bhayankar pollution hai (Every time, while coming to Delhi, I think whether I should go or not because pollution levels are so high).”
Referring to a report, Gadkari said severe air pollution badly impacts lives of people in the capital. “Still there is not that much awareness among people,” he said. Gadkari said large-scale migration from villages to cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata have resulted in multiple problems. “At many places you see water flowing in Delhi, but it’s only sewage water,” he added.
The minister said the best way to reduce pollution is to bring down the consumption of fossil fuels and use of bio-CNG and other alternate fuels that are clean.
Besides raising concerns over air pollution, Gadkari also referred to the four legacy municipal waste dump sites, sarcastically terming them as “tourist spots”. “This is shameful for the city. I tried for four years to utilise the processed materials from these sites for highway projects. But agencies concerned raised several issues, including the segregation of wastes. We have made some progress and utilised around 80 lakh tonnes of segregated and processed waste in highway projects,” he added.
The minister said he held a meeting with the Delhi municipal commissioner and other officials on Monday. The MCD has invited bids for segregation and processing of waste and keeping them at specific locations. TOI
