Activist Amit Kumar's RTI Reveals 1300 Fires In 2 Years Worsen Noida's Air Crisis

6 hours ago

This special report highlights the severe air pollution crisis in Delhi-NCR, contrasting the inaction in Parliament's Winter Session with the hazardous ground reality in Noida. While key issues like air quality find no time for debate among lawmakers, India Today's ground report exposes rampant environmental violations in Noida, including unchecked construction dust and waste burning. The report features activist Amit Kumar, who, through an RTI, revealed a critical factor worsening the air quality. According to the findings he shared, there have been 'over 1300 fire incidents in the last two years' in the Gautam Buddhnagar district alone. Doctors have noted a sharp spike in respiratory illnesses, especially among children and the elderly. The segment questions the lack of a concrete strategy to tackle pollution hotspots, as government measures like a stalled cloud seeding plan and providing heaters fail to address the core issues.

Transcript

00:00Alright, and sticking with Parliament, Winter Session, like we just told you, is underway. Today is Day 2.

00:05Day 1, let's tell you quickly what happened or what did not happen.

00:09Well, the House was tied up with protests, there were procedural interruptions as well.

00:12The opposition centred its demonstration on SIR.

00:15The result, adjournments, noise, but no structured debate, even on an issue that is as critical as pollution.

00:22For context, all of this, the entire Winter Session is happening right here in the National Capital,

00:28sitting under a hazardous winter smog.

00:31Delhi's air is touching 400, 500 range in several pockets in recent days.

00:35A level at which doctors are consistently flagging serious health risks.

00:39The impact is visible, reduced visibility.

00:42There is health advisories and the risk in also just life expectancy all throughout.

00:49Doesn't matter your gender, doesn't matter what you do, doesn't matter your age as well.

00:52Especially precarious for younger kids and older citizens as well.

00:57The rise in respiratory complaints have also gone up.

01:00And yet, the Indian Parliament National Health Air Emergency has not found a single mention yet.

01:09On the government side, the agenda reflects perhaps a mismatch in priorities.

01:14Ten hours of the House has been given formally allocated to one day matram.

01:19Fair enough.

01:20But not a single hour set aside for public health emergency unfolding right outside.

01:25That is also a priority ride.

01:29Who will talk about that?

01:31The opposition, on the other hand, is holding all party meetings.

01:35There is discussion going on on strategy.

01:37But what is the strategy on pollution?

01:41This gap is very, very hard to overlook because not very far from parliament and not very long ago.

01:48Let's put up those pictures as well.

01:50What was happening?

01:51Citizens, school children, parents, stood at Jantar Mantar asking for something as basic as clean air.

02:01They called in a matter of health and not politics.

02:05And the irony is hard to miss.

02:07The people of Delhi are asking for clean air.

02:10But their representatives still haven't found the time to discuss it.

02:15The demand is pretty simple.

02:18And it is clean air.

02:22And the question is even simpler.

02:24When will parliament take it up?

02:33Meanwhile, let's give you some updates on what the pollution figures are.

02:36This report comes to us from NOIDA.

02:39As NCR battles hazardous air, NOIDA has emerged as an epicenter of this pollution crisis.

02:45You must have seen and wondered why is it that NOIDA and Greater NOIDA are always worse than Delhi

02:50when we are pretty much in the same ecosystem, right?

02:53But behind government assurances lies a disturbing ground reality.

02:58Rampant violations, unchecked fires and rising health risks.

03:03India Today's Ground Reality Check exposes how these violations are worsening the air emergency specifically in NOIDA.

03:11Take a look.

03:20While the entire national capital region has turned into a toxic gas chamber, NOIDA is battling the worst of the worst

03:28and has turned into NCI's pollution hotspot.

03:31Vehicular emissions, dust and waste burning have been identified as key contributors to this air disaster.

03:38But India Today's reality check in the Gautam-Buddhanagar region paints a more disturbing picture.

03:44A series of environmental violations continue unchecked despite government regulations.

03:50An RTI filed by activist Amit Kumar is revealed that the primary cause of rising air pollution in the district,

03:59over 1300 fire incidents in the last two years.

04:06I filed an RTI with the fire department Gautam-Buddhanagar to know that how many fire incidents that we have reported

04:12for the burning of garbage and the Kabad etc.

04:16So the 589 incidents have been reported till October 25.

04:20Garbage burning is also causing lots of pollution.

04:24So we just want to know the number that how many are there actually reported

04:28and how many get dosed off and what action they have taken on that.

04:37While the administration claims that pollution control measures are being followed,

04:40the ground reality reveals otherwise.

04:45Noida Extension, a rapidly growing region that should be a model of urban development,

04:50has instead become a haven for blatant violations of anti-pollution norms.

04:55Construction sites are found running without working water sprinklers

04:59and open burning of waste adds to the direct breach of graph norms.

05:06These project sites are mandated to run these sprinklers.

05:09What these sprinklers do, they eventually settle the dust of the construction sites

05:14and make sure the dust doesn't go outside the ambient of the construction area

05:18to contain the dust pollution.

05:21There is one machine, there is another machine right next to that.

05:23All, I mean, just literally when I reached here, it was shut down.

05:27It is still shut down.

05:29And the person came out, though we are operating on and off,

05:31and I saw it could virtually, it could hardly last for a few seconds,

05:34and after a few seconds it literally collapsed down.

05:36To pile on, mechanical road sweepers were caught dumping street dust into open fields

05:42instead of authorised dumping sites.

05:45Residents say the situation has worsened in the past few weeks,

05:48with no monitoring from authorities.

05:50Burning is there but not at that scale.

05:56But yeah, it is there.

05:57There are corners where people burn garbage.

06:00But the major is the road quality and dust emerging due to that.

06:06When the dust is running?

06:07When the dust is running?

06:08Yes, it is running here.

06:09There is a smell of burning in the morning and morning,

06:11and in the morning, it is getting the smell of the fire.

06:13And it is also a problem inside the presence of the sand and the nose.

06:18for thousands of families living in the area the continuous exposure to dust and

06:24smoke is more than an inconvenience it's a health hazard doctors annoyed have

06:29reported a sharp spike in chronic diseases and respiratory issues

06:33especially in children and the elderly the air pollution is very high the air

06:42quality index is very pure I am seeing lots of patient in my evening OPD are

06:47around eight to ten patient they all are suffering from chronic lung disease or

06:53acute lung disease most vulnerable patients they are the oldest patient the

06:58pregnant ladies the child patients the kids who suffering from this and what

07:04happens eventually the victim are the elderly the children the women be the

07:08resident of NCR Gautam Budhnagar exponentially growing one of the largest

07:12township highly dense populated area just near the national capital but when we

07:17see reality on the ground totally the the majors that have been mandated by the

07:22CAQM the Commission for Air Quality Management to ensure air pollution is

07:26checked are totally flouted here in Twitter Noida West with Nasir I'm Ashutosh

07:30Mishra for India today

07:34all right so that's the ground reality here in Noida let me cut across to my

07:39colleague Milan now joining us for the very latest on what's happening in Delhi and

07:43NCR overall Milan the ground report that we just showed tells us blatant

07:48violations that are going on forget grab three and grab four but I think the

07:52lesson from Mumbai really is to attack the hotspots right is there any such

07:57strategy in the minds of CPCB even the other bodies in Delhi to understand and

08:05attack the hotspots blanket bands nobody really wants right but people want to

08:09address the hotspots because report after report is telling us that it is

08:13industrial waste report after report is telling us that it is vehicular

08:18pollution these two need to be tackled

08:21well Sonal as regards to vehicular pollution definitely the more congestion

08:27there is the more jams there are the more pollution there will be from vehicular

08:33emissions and that is something that is backed by science even the CSE report says

08:38that so these are internal sources of pollution what we heard latest from the

08:41Delhi government is Rekha Gupta the chief minister has said that we'll give

08:46about 10,000 heaters to people who burn a wood for fire because considering it's

08:53winter and that is also known as an internal source of pollution within the

08:57urban city as well so these are some of these measures that are being put

09:01forward by the government but yet again as you have mentioned no bands no traps

09:05just clear long-term strategies are not really being looked at there's the winter

09:10action plan at the Delhi government is also currently working on I would say a

09:14little too late because they should have actually started working on the winter

09:17action plan right before winter hits we are at the precipice of the cold wave at

09:22the moment and we are just about to enter into a cold wave and it's going to be

09:26more difficult because in the entire month of November and we are at the end of

09:31it now in December we have not seen one single day of respite where air quality

09:37was you know in a poor or in a satisfactory level and that happens across

09:42Delhi NCR even in the report that was shown from Noida internal sources of

09:46pollution burning of biofuel burning of garbage burning of this biomass as well as

09:53traffic pollution is something that will need to be curved on war footing and for

09:58that something like a congestion tax was mooted years ago when we used to report

10:03on this but nothing is being done right now even in cities where urban cities in

10:09central districts of the city there is no stoppage on vehicles that enter each and

10:14every area so more of this will need to be done in the long term and meanwhile also

10:19even when the government is looking at air pollution collective effort from the

10:23opposition will need to be put forward to actually bring about a concrete step

10:28there last last very quick question what happened to cloud seeding has that

10:32been put on hold completely or is the government going to revise that plan well

10:36Sonal currently the cloud seeding has been put on hold completely as you said

10:40because of the very reason that there aren't clouds conducive enough to carry out

10:45that kind of experiment that was done in a knee-jerk reaction by the Delhi

10:49government all right Milan thank you so much for keeping an eye out on that story

10:55while we continuously bring you report after report on air pollution a testimony

11:02after testimony from people who are leaving the city doctors who are saying

11:06leave if you can experts who are you know even artists one of cancelling their

11:11concerts Palash say and one of them cancelled his concert in the national

11:14capital saying it's too polluted and yet while the government is together

11:19forming policy nobody really has bothered about air pollution but we

11:25hope the story changes tomorrow we keep our focus on it

Activist Amit Kumar's RTI Reveals 1300 Fires In 2 Years Worsen Noida's Air Crisis

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