The Supreme Court Monday directed the Centre to hold an emergency meeting on the pollution crisis and by Tuesday decide on steps like stopping non-essential construction, transport, power plants and implementing work from home to tackle the situation, saying “the cat is out of the bag” now as the “hue and cry” over stubble burning being a big contributor was without any basis.
Ordering the Centre to hold the meeting with the secretaries concerned of Delhi, Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, the bench headed by Chief Justice N V Ramana said, “In fact, now the cat is out of the bag, the farmers stubble burning contributes to 4 percent of the pollution… So, we are targeting something which is totally insignificant”.It pulled up the city government for making ‘lame excuses’ and passing the buck to civic bodies for not taking emergent measures in handling the crisis.The bench, also comprising Justices D Y Chandrachud and Surya Kant, said that construction, industry, transport, power and vehicular traffic are the major culprits in causing pollution and asked the Centre to take steps regarding these factors.”Even though some decisions were taken by the Commission for Air Quality Management in the National Capital Region and Adjoining Areas Act it has not indicated precisely what steps they are going to take to control factors that are causing air pollution,” it said.”In view of that, we direct the government of India to call for an emergency meeting tomorrow and discuss the areas which we indicated and what orders they can pass to effectively control air pollution.
“So far as the stubble burning is concerned, broadly affidavits state that their contribution is not so much except for two months. However, at present a good amount of stubble burning is taking place in Haryana and Punjab,” the bench said, adding that the farmers be urged not to burn stubble for two weeks.
He said the Centre was not willing to take strong measures in view of the upcoming assembly elections in Punjab and sought for the constitution of an independent commission to oversee the process.The top court said, “We’re in the midst of a crisis situation, we can’t deal with new issues like the constitution of a committee. The government has filed a detailed affidavit. With reference to those steps you can make suggestions.”
