NGT: Stop manual cleaning of roads

New Delhi: Manual cleaning of road dust must be stopped immediately, the National Green Tribunal directed the Delhi government, asking it to introduce mechanical cleaning in the national capital.

The green panel said manual removal of dust from roads only regenerates pollution in the environment and the police should ensure that wherever mechanised cleaning of dust is introduced, no vehicles should be parked on the roadside.

“The state government, public authorities and development agencies shall introduce vacuum cleaning machines for removal of dust and waste from the roads in a gradual manner. Cleaning of dust manually should be stopped. Mechanical cleaning of the roads should be introduced. Manual cleaning of dust only helps in re-generation of pollution and does not effectively cause cleaning of roads or air either,” a bench headed by National Green Tribunal  chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar said.

The tribunal noted there were seven major contributors of air pollution which include construction activity and transportation of building material, burning of municipal solid waste, crop agriculture residue, vehicular pollution, dust on the roads, industrial and power house emissions including flyash and emissions from hot-mix plants and stone crushers.

The NGT had earlier passed a slew of directions, including setting up centralised and state level monitoring committees to prepare action plans to combat pollution in a bid to tackle environment emergencies.