Green body welcomes Supreme Court nod to Centre’s anti-pollution plan

“CSE welcomes the far reaching decision of the SC directing the Central government to notify the graded response action plan finalised by the Environment Ministry, Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and Sunita Narain. This decision will give the measures under the action plan the statutory back up to make them enforceable,” it said. The Supreme Court on Friday accorded its nod to the Centre’s graded response action plan to tackle different levels of pollution and asked the CPCB to upgrade its existing infrastructure and set up additional monitoring stations in Delhi-NCR within six months.

The green body noted that the apex court has also responded firmly to the findings of the Environment Pollution Control Authority (EPCA) investigation into the quality of industrial fuel, including furnace oil and petroleum coke, which have “unacceptably high sulphur content and responsible for very high toxic emissions.”

Elaborating on the key highlights of the graded response action plan, CSE said the plan has proposed stratified levels of action according to the air pollution levels classified by air quality index, which range from moderate to poor to very poor to severe to severe+ or emergency.