Delhi Smog: Delhi Govt Sitting on Rs 829 Crore in Green Funds

Delhi and its surrounding regions have been cloaked in a deathly smog over the past 10 days, posing a huge health and safety hazard. Image used for representational purposes.

(Photo: Lijumol Joseph/The Quint)

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Wednesday blamed the Centre for blocking projects as an RTI query revealed that the Kejriwal government did not spend anything out of the Rs 787 crore it collected as environment cess till 30 September 2017.

As the capital city grappled with dangerously high pollution levels, the Right to Information (RTI) query by a Delhi resident, Sanjeev Jain on Wednesday found out that the Delhi government was unable to specify its utilisation of the Rs 787 crore green cess collected during 2017.

The government said it spent Rs 93 lakh of the cess in 2016, but there was "no mention of any expenditure" in 2017.

Hindustan Times procured another document that shows that an additional 42 crore rupees have been collected till the beginning of this Month.

The green tax, collected by the SDMC and sent to the transport department, is Rs 700 for light and two axle vehicles, and Rs 1300 three axle vehicles.

Another 500 crore cess collected on every litre of diesel sold since 2008 is also lying unspent. The government had not been given any directions as to the allocation of this money, Hindustan Times reported.

The AAP government came under attack from the opposition parties following the revelation.

Delhi Congress chief Ajay Maken slammed the city government and said they could have bought new buses with this money, and also augmented total parking capacity of the bus depots.

Lashing out at Kejriwal, Maken said: "Instead of using the money which is lying idle, he (Kejriwal) is busy aiming at other state governments and the Centre instead of doing his bit."

Maken said Kejriwal could have purchased road vacuum cleaners, as dust "is the single-largest contributory factor for air pollution" in Delhi.

When we were in power, the strength of the DTC (Delhi Transport Corporation) was 5,445 buses, which has now gone down to 3,951 buses. There has been a shortfall of 1,500 buses in three years.

Ajay Maken

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), instead, blamed the central government for its failure to spend Rs 787 crore of environmental cess and accused it of blocking the projects to control pollution.

AAP's chief spokesperson Saurabh Bharadwaj said they never said that the Delhi government had a shortage of funds.

Though the government wanted to purchase buses, the central government did not allot land for bus depots.

Saurabh Bharadwaj, AAP chief spokesperson

He also said that the government had approached the central government for permission of aerial sprinkling of water to control pollution, and was even ready to spend the money.

Bharadwaj told IANS that the government had been taking other measures like spraying water on roads to control dust, but environment cess was not being utilised for it, and was being done using other funds.

Further defending the party, he compared the amount of green funds “unused” by AAP is nothing when compared to the green funds “diverted” by the BJP.

When asked about other pollution control measures like installation of air purifiers and vacuum cleaning of roads, the leader said that both options were looked into, but they were not found feasible.

Meanwhile, the Delhi government said it had prepared a one-year short-term plan to tackle air pollution.

A Delhi government official said Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal held a meeting with senior officials on Tuesday evening and directed that the environmental cess and environmental ambient air fund be used for procurement of buses.

The Delhi government has prepared a one-year short-term plan, under which it proposes to procure 500 electric buses within one year.

Delhi government spokesperson

He said the government was planning to procure buses of two different sizes – Standard and Medium. According to him, a standard size bus costs Rs 2.6 crore, while the medium size bus comes for Rs 1.6 crore.

Later, Saurabh Bhardwaj tweeted that the Lt Governor was not allotting land for depots for the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) fleet.

"Government has plans to buy 500 electrical buses, but no depots to park them. LG (Lt Governor) controls land," he tweeted.

On Wednesday, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal met his Haryana counterpart Manohar Lal Khattar in Chandigarh and the two agreed to take steps to prevent a repeat of smog in the National Capital Region (NCR) in 2018.

We ... are happy to have had a very fruitful meeting at Chandigarh. We recognise our deep and shared concern over the recent episode of heavy smog in NCR. We agreed upon the need for action on many measures aimed at preventing its reoccurrence in the winter of 2018.

Joint statement by the Delhi and Haryana Governments

Meanwhile, the Air Quality Index (AQI) of the national capital fell under "very poor" category on Wednesday, though it is said to have improved as compared to the past week.

According to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), the average AQI of Delhi-NCR at 6 pm was 353 on Wednesday, while the major pollutant PM 2.5 (particles with diameter less than 2.5 mm) was recorded 353 units – technically considered "very poor".

(with inputs from IANS and Hindustan Times)