Delhi Pollution Levels Came Down 20-25 Percent in Past 15 Days

Delhi Transport Minister Gopal Rai claims that pollution levels in the national capital came down by an average of 20-25 percent in the past 15 days when the odd-even scheme was in practice. "Some important things came up from the pollution data available with us for the past 15 days - first, had there been no odd-even scheme, the fine particulate matter (PM2.5), which was recorded 400 in December, would have been 600. And second, we got pollution sampling of various places done, perhaps for the first time in Delhi, and according to that the pollution level was 400-plus in border areas, but inside Delhi it was between 300 and 400," he said while buttressing his claim.

"A total of 9,144 challans had been issued by Thursday evening, of which 2,889 challans were issued by the Delhi Police and 6,255 issued by the Transport Department and Sub Divisional Magistrates (SDMs)," he informed reporters at a press conference along with Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal here. He further said that as many as 19,614 calls were answered on the helpline numbers, including queries and problems, on which the government worked.

Appreciating auto-rickshaws drivers for their cooperation with the Delhi Government, he said, "There were so much apprehension among people about the behaviour of auto-rickshaws drivers during this phase, but they cooperated with us and were more disciplined than ever, which is evident from only 917 complaints received regarding drivers." Besides, Poochh-O App was downloaded by 40,000 people during the past 15 days, while Carpooling App was used by nearly 4,500 people, he said.

Appreciating the service provided by the DTC, the minister said the drivers and conductors of the DTC had cancelled all their leaves and worked for 15 days at a stretch. The first phase of successful enforcement of odd-even rule will come to end by 8p.m on Friday, however, there is no clarity on the implementation of the second phase.

Source-ANI