New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday remarked that the odd-even scheme devised by the government to tackle air pollution in Delhi is "mere optics" without any substantial result. A bench comprising justices SK Kaul and Sudhanshu Dhulia said in the context of the odd-even scheme, orally remarked, have you evaluated how it worked in previous years in bringing down the pollution levels? Such schemes are only optics. The Delhi government counsel was present before the bench.
The bench observed that the air pollution situation in the national capital region would have been worse if the metro railway system had not been there. "An issue is extreme weather conditions. God knows what would happen if metro was not there…though point-to-point connectivity is still an issue," Justice Kaul said.
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After it was informed that the smog tower in CP was not functional, the bench said it should be made functional. The bench observed that in Delhi and Punjab, the same party is ruling what is the problem in containing the farm fires? The bench asked Chief Secretaries of stakeholder states to meet on Wednesday even if online and the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) chief has been summoned on Friday, the next date of the hearing.
The bench asked the Delhi government to control the entry of orange-tagged vehicles (polluting diesel cars) and taxis from other states in the national capital. The bench noted that while the government was promoting millet, on the one hand, it was also letting paddy ruin groundwater in Punjab.
Justice Kaul said he had gone to Punjab recently and saw farm fires at many places and Delhi cannot be made to go through this every year. The bench observed that local SHO should be made more accountable for any incident of crop burning. The court was hearing an application regarding air pollution in the national capital and scheduled the matter for further hearing on Friday.
