The Supreme Court on Monday, suspended the one-member committee to oversee steps to tackle stubble burning. The Centre informed that through legislation it would create a permanent body that will deal with the air pollution problem in Delhi and its surrounding areas.
As per the source, the Environment Ministry said that the new committee would be taking charge of not just tackling stubble burning but overall air pollution concerns in the National Capital Region. The Supreme Court had appointed retired judge Justice Madan B Lokur to keep a check on stubble burning in Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. Earlier, the court had refused to accept the Centre’s request to reconsider the appointment.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta representing the government told the court that the new legislation will be brought within three or four days. Apart from this, it had also asked the court to suspend the Lokur Committee. ‘This is something that government should have acted on,’ the Chief Justice of India SA Bobde said.
He also said that pollution is a major concern and it is something which must be curbed.
This new committee might also replace the EPCA — Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority. With the increasing coronavirus cases, the increasing air pollution is a major concern as it has been linked to the spike in coronavirus cases by experts, as reported by NDTV.
A report by National Centre for Disease Control earlier this month held that Delhi may see up to 15,000 COVID cases a day in winter. Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar had said that stubble burning contributes only four per cent to pollution in the Delhi-NCR area. According to him, the rest are caused by ‘local factors’.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal protested against his statement by mentioning that there has been no massive jump in any local source of pollution in the last few days to cause the spike.
