Govt offers sops to factories, eateries for using green fuel

New Delhi: In an attempt to bring down air pollution, the city Cabinet on Tuesday approved the environment ministry’s proposal to grant 50 per cent subsidy to those restaurants, hotels and other commercial entities who would convert their coal-based tandoors to electricity or gas-based owens. The Cabinet also granted an approval to provide subsidy up to Rs 1 lakh to the industries that switch to the Piped Natural Gas (PNG).

The city government will grant 50 per cent subsidy or a maximum of Rs 5,000 subsidy per tandoor (whichever is less) to the owners of the restaurants, banquet halls or the hotels who switch to the electricity or gas based tandoors with effect from 1/04/2018.

As per the city government’s scheme, the hotels, restaurants or banquet halls that have come up on April 1, 2018 or after will also be eligible for the subsidy. Officials said that the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) will be the nodal body for the monitoring and implementation of the scheme.

“The DPCC will finalise the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), application form and the format for the inspection/verification report for processing the grant of the subsidy. The approval for the payment to be met out from Air Ambience Fund maintained by DPCC,” a Delhi Government statement said.  

In the budget speech 2018-19, Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia had said, “We will offer a subsidy of up to Rs 5,000 per tandoor to restaurants to replace Coal tandoors with Electricity or gas-based Tandoors.”

Apart from this, the city government will provide a grant of Rs 50,000 to small industries and Rs 1,00,000 to large industries for switching over to PNG in the approved industrial areas of the national Capital. The government will also extend the incentive to those units which have switched over to PNG in 2017-18. Delhi is facing challenges of air pollution particularly with respect to higher particulate matter concentration in the ambient air. Steps are being taken continuously for abatement of air pollution in Delhi. In order to deal with Severe or Severe Plus conditions as per the Air Quality Index (AQI), Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) has been notified by the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, Govt. of India on 12.01.2017 for its implementation.