Top officials skip key parliament panel meeting on pollution

Top officials of the Environment Ministry, DDA and municipal commissioners skipped a key meeting of a parliamentary panel held in New Delhi on Friday (November 15) on the issue of severe pollution.

According to sources, members present at the meeting of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Urban Development were upset with those absent and plan to raise the issue with the Speaker.

They asked junior officials to convey to their seniors that they should have attended the meeting, sources said.

Reports claim that cricketer and BJP leader Gautam Gambhir, whose name was among the Lok Sabha members summoned for the meeting.

The officials who skipped the meeting included top officials of the Environment Ministry, Delhi Development Authority (DDA) and municipal commissioners.

The questions that the members were planning to raise included: As there are about 50 lakh cars on the roads in Delhi, is the government coming up with any sort of car pool policy or regulation?

Another question was that as per the Union Government, Rs 1,150 crores were given by the Centre to the states in the last one year to combat air pollution along with 14,000 machines. Does the government have a quantitative and qualitative utilisation report of the money disbursed?

The third question to be raised pertained to the Supreme Courts recent observation that everybody ranging from the secretary to the gram pradhan will be held responsible for losses due to air pollution. Does the government, in this regard, intend to define and fix responsibility through an internal mechanism?

The national capital is battling alarming levels of air pollution for the past few weeks. The air quality further deteriorated in the last four days, forcing authorities to shut schools for two days.

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