The Badarpur thermal power plant will remain shut till January 31, 2017, while the ban on diesel generator sets will remain enforced till the same date to help tackle air pollution in the national capital, the Delhi government said on Thursday.
Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had imposed the prohibitions on November 6 when Delhi was experiencing its worst spell of smog and pollution in recent memory. The Delhi Pollution Control Committee on Thursday extended the ban. The decision was announced following a meeting, chaired by the state environment minister, Imran Hussain, to review the effectiveness of the measures announced, including penalty on construction violating dust pollution norms, and on open burning of waste material.
"The DPCC informed that directions have been issued under section 31(A) of Air Pollution (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act 1981, for banning of all fire crackers/ fireworks (except on religious occasions)," an official statement said.
Apart from prohibition on its functioning, the DPCC has also barred lifting of fly ash for any purpose along with ensuring the regular sprinkling of water in the fly ash storage area in the Badarpur plant, considered one of the major sources of pollution in the city as identified by an IIT Kanpur study.
"Regarding compliance of dust control measures at the construction sites, DPCC informed that 11 teams constituting engineers from DPCC along with SDMs from Revenue Department have jointly inspected 496 sites and issued 289 challans amounting to about Rs 89 lakh so far.
"The DPCC also informed that it has issued closure directions in the last 15-20 days to 23 polluting units in conforming areas and 146 closure directions to polluting industries in non-conforming areas," it said.
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