ANNOUNCEMENTS
Air Pollution in Delhi is a severe issue and has severe impact over the health of the inhabitants. This toxic air that the residents of Delhi breathe is a result of rapid industrialisation along with the age-old agricultural method of burning crops. Seeing this pathetic condition of Delhi‘s Air and failing policies and mechanisms established to curb this growing menace Supreme Court in the year 2016 directed for the framing of a Graded Response Action Plan which would be implemented in phases depending upon the level of Pollution in the air of Delhi. For the proper implementation the apex court made the Environmental Pollution and Control Authority in charged for the job and the EPCA would report the Supreme Court directly. The GRAP after being implemented though not immediately but was showing minute improvement in the air quality ever since it came into force. It used data from the System of Air quality and Weather Forecasting Research to monitor the level of pollution along with several monitoring units established all over Delhi. Despite all this the Central Govt grounded the EPCA which was looking over the implementation of GRAP in November 2020 and constituted a new committee called the Committee on Air Quality Management through a Presidential Ordinance with greater powers in hand. For this ordinance so passed a bill was also needed to be passed in the Parliament for giving the ordinance a permanent stature but 6 months passed by and no bill was presented and resultingly the Ordinance has lapsed and now the current situation is that there is no statutory body to manage and implement the GRAP which shows a major failure on the part of the Government. The infrastructure created to deal with the air pollution seems to be a waste of public funds and the future of GRAP is in uncertainty.
