MC constitutes 35 teams to check air pollution in Gurugram

The Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) on Wednesday constituted 35 special teams at the ward level to keep a check on violations of the prohibitory orders issued by the district administration under Stage-IV of the GRAP on the recommendations of the Commission for Air Quality Management in the NCR and adjoining areas.

These teams will conduct regular inspections in the wards assigned to them. They will strictly monitor unauthorised activities — construction and demolition works, garbage burning and all other activities causing air pollution in the hotspot areas and other sensitive places. Besides this, these teams will take all possible measures for dust control like sprinkling of water on the roads and roadside trees. The ward-level teams have also been empowered to issue challans and imposed fines against the violation of the prohibitory orders.

Each team will be headed by a Junior Engineer, along with three other MC employees attached with them. There are 52 junior engineers presently working in the civic body and 35 of them have been assigned the task to check the GRAP-IV violations. MCG Commissioner Ashok Kumar Garg said the civic body had asked the builders to spray water on the construction sites and its surrounding areas, and stop all construction and demolition activities till further orders.

Meanwhile, the corporation currently has only three anti-smog guns whose capacity is to spray 30 to 100 liters of water per minute. The number of water tankers has been increased to 35 for sprinkling water on the roads and roadside trees. The MCG also has 16 mechanised road sweeping machines, which have been engaged to work throughout the night every day.

An MCG official revealed that the civic body had issued challans to 577 people during the past one month and imposed a total fine of Rs 18.78 lakh on them for violating the prohibitory orders issued under GRAP-III and IV stages.

The MCG has collected Rs 62,000 from 16 individuals for burning garbage, Rs 1 lakh from 20 for burning coal or wood in tandoors and furnaces, Rs 2.90 lakh from 33 people for carrying building material without covers, Rs 5.32 lakh from 21 people for transporting C&D waste, Rs 1.8 lakh from 217 people for spreading garbage in public places, Rs 20,000 from 4 people for illegally dumping garbage, Rs 3.19 lakh from 20 people for violating solid waste management rules and Rs 1.93 lakh from 211 people for using banned plastic.