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
Comments