Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee president Shri Devender Yadav said that even before the winter chill has hit the Capital, the Air Quality Index (AQI) has deteriorated to severe levels, as the Aam Aadmi Party Devender Yadav worries about the toxic air only when a thick haze of pollutants envelop the city’s skies. He said that AAP and BJP make big noises about air pollution when the toxic haze chokes people as pollution can be brought under control only through round-the-year, sustained efforts by eliminating the root causes of air pollution.

Shri Devender Yadav said that the biggest contributing factors for Delhi’s air pollution were vehicular pollution and dust, emanating from broken roads, construction sites and garbage dumps, but the AAP Government has failed to address these issues. He said that last winter, Delhi was in the grip of toxic smog for nearly two months, yet the Delhi Chief Minister and Environment Minister thought of enforcing various measures, including GRAF (Graded Response Action Plan), only at the eleventh hour this year, when air pollution had already reached the ‘severe’ category.

Shri Devender Yadav said that the AAP Government had been sidetracking the real causes for Capital’s toxic air, and its ad hoc measures like odd-even, red light on–gaadi off, costly ventures like smog tower had only limited impact. He said that farm fires in neighbouring States like Punjab, Haryana, UP etc. were also blamed for Delhi’s polluted air, but the AAP Government has not done anything to address this problem either. He said that Delhi’s air has become very poor even though farm fires were yet to make an impact.

Shri Devender Yadav said that if farm fires were one of the major causes of Delhi’s air pollution, then the Kejriwal Government should have taken up this matter with the neighbouring States so that this problem could have been tackled with joint efforts, instead of blame games. He said that when Congress was in power in Punjab, Kejriwal would target the State for the Capital’s polluted air, but now that AAP was in power there, Kejriwal, Atishi and the Ministers of Delhi were keeping mum. He said that passing the buck will only exacerbate Delhi’s toxic air, and the need of the hour was joint efforts by the Central, Delhi and governments of neighbouring States to find a lasting solution to NCR’s fouled up atmosphere