To check rising pollution level in Dehradun, an effective strategy will be formulated. The State Pollution Control Board has been made the nodal institution for the purpose while transport, urban development, forest, PWD and police department has also been associated. A meeting in this regard was chaired by Uttarakhand Chief Secretary Utpal Kumar Singh at secretariat on Tuesday.
S.P. Subudhi, member secretary of the Pollution control board gave a presentation on the monitoring of pollution. He said that monitoring is being done on the basis of particular matter (PM) 2.5, PM 10, Sulphur Oxide (SOX) and Nitrogen Oxide (NOX) content in the atmosphere. Monitoring stations have been established at Clock Tower, Raipur,Himalayan Drug and ISBT.
He explained that there are mainly four causes of pollution namely emission from vehicles, construction activities, open burning and dust on the roads. He said that a system of discarding old vehicles in a phased manner has to be developed and checking of pollution levels of existing vehicles should be done. There is need to encourage E-rickshaw,E-car, E-bus and E-bikes and ban on entry of vehicles in busy areas. There should be complete ban on burning of garbage at open places and garbage lifting should be done at night. He said that Clean Air Asia has selected Dehradun for its effort to check pollution and with their help a better strategy to check could be made.
D.Senthil Pandian ,Secretary ,Transport informed that piped CNG will be available from December and use of CNG in vehicles will be encouraged. He said that a total of 909 E-rickshaws have been registered and vehicles run on battery or solar power are being given exemption in taxes. A green cess is imposed at the time of registration and renewal of vehicles.
The pollution checking centres have been linked with vehicle-4 software. He informed that there are 25.61 lakh vehicles registered out of which 8.68 lakh vehicles are in Dehradun.he said that two lakh new vehicles are registered every year in the state. There are 103 pollution checking points in the state out of which 26 pollution checking centres are in Dehradun.
