The national capital is gasping for breath. Pollution levels in New Delhi are touching nearly 30 times higher than the safe air quality index set by the World Health Organization.
Union environment minister Harsh Vardhan has decided to come down harshly on garbage burning, power plants, industrial emissions, brick kilns, hot mix plants, stone crushers etc. and intensify public transport, the sprinkling of water on roads and encourage mechanised sweeping.
An NDTV report also quoted city lung surgeon Arvind Kumar at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital saying, “The situation as it exists today is the worst that I have seen in my 35 years staying in the city of Delhi. As a doctor, I have no problem saying that the situation today is a public health emergency. If you want to protect people, we should be ordering the evacuation of Delhi. Closing down all schools. Closing down all offices.”
Apart from pollution control board authorities and citizen groups, Indian celebrities are also stepping on to the scene to take a stand against the rising pollution levels and using their platform to raise awareness about #DelhiSmog.
Actor Varun Dhawan who is currently shooting in the city for next project Sui Dhaaga, which promotes ‘Made In India’ products, after experiencing the air quality firsthand took to social media and shared a video message asking everyone in the city to stay safe.
Read more: Solution To Delhi’s Smog Problem: This Moss Wall ‘Eats’ As Much Polluted Air As A Small Forest
He was seen donning an air mask for a picture. He encouraged people to step up and collectively put in efforts, to not contribute to the rising pollution levels in whatever way they could.
He encouraged people to recycle waste instead of burning it. He also added that he would soon be kickstarting a campaign promoting recycling waste alongside Adar Poonawalla under his Clean City initiative.
His post was captioned, “Rethink. Let’s change instead of blame. @adarpoonawalla has taken a great initiative let’s all try and keep our cities clean and recycle waste instead of burning it,” we hope will help people engage actively in the cause.
We hope the city comes together to fight smog and claims its #RightToBreathe by joining hands to control rising pollutions levels and better the degrading air quality index.
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