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Bengaluru: The government is working to ensure that air quality in the national capital will improve by 15% a year from now, promised Union environment minister Bhupender Yadav on January 15. Yadav was speaking at a conclave on pollution organised by a television channel.

Yadav also blamed the opposition for the issue of air pollution not being discussed in Parliament during the last session. However, this is a claim that the Congress has rejected. 

‘Will improve air quality by 15% this year’

Air quality in the national capital will improve by at least 15% this year, promised union environment minister Bhupender Yadav during an interview at the ‘Pollution Ka Solution Conclave’ organised by India TV on January 15 at New Delhi. Yadav said this in response to a question on how long Delhi would have to wait for clean air. Yadav’s statement may have referred to a 15-20% improvement in Air Quality Index (AQI, which is a measure of air quality) levels that a recent government statement claimed Delhi could witness due to several actions that the government has promised to take. A January 12 press release by the union environment ministry had said that a “coordinated, target-based action plan by all NCR governments is expected to lead to a 15-20% improvement in AQI levels by the end of this year”. 

Per the release and what Yadav said at the interview, these actions include identifying 62 traffic hotspots where an Intelligent Traffic Management System will be implemented especially during peak traffic hours to ensure lesser traffic in Delhi and the NCR. To achieve better air quality in the coming year, the government is taking both short term and long term measures, Yadav also said at the interview. Yadav claimed that the government had developed a roadmap on how to go about reducing air pollution in New Delhi. Though the minister did not expand on this, he was possibly referring to the ‘Annual Action Plans’ that the government asked different stakeholders to put together to bring down air pollution in the city. Yadav repeated the points specified in a government

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