The National Green Tribunal has directed states which witnessed a deterioration in the Air Quality Index to make “concerted efforts” to ensure an improvement in air quality.
According to PTI, The tribunal had earlier issued notices to the chief secretaries of several states after taking cognisance of the online air quality bulletins of the Central Pollution Control Board. It had also directed the chief secretaries of the states where the AQI had dipped or continued to be severe, very poor and poor, to “take all possible immediate remedial measures”.
Referring to the AQI chart of various cities, including those in Punjab, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Meghalaya, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Maharashtra and Bihar, from November 10 to 21, an NGT bench said, “It did not depict any satisfactory efforts by the authorities concerned.” The bench of NGT Chairperson Justice Prakash Shrivastava judicial member Justice Sudhir Agarwal and expert member A Senthil Vel underscored that though the reports by various states mentioned that measures were taken to improve the air quality, there were no “fruitful results” and the air quality index in the cities “continued to be poor, very poor or severe with some fluctuation”.
