Ongoing tussle between AAP government, bureaucracy holds up Clean Air campaign

A much-talked-about two-month-long ‘Clean Air Campaign’ for Delhi, which was to be launched jointly by the Central government’s Environment ministry and the Delhi government could not take off, thanks to the ongoing battle between Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and the bureaucracy.

The idea was to sensitise officials of different government agencies, as also the common man. The campaign was announced by Union Environment Minister Harsh Vardhan on February 10. But it could not start due to the battle between the elected government and the bureaucracy in Delhi.

As per the proposed programme, the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and the Delhi government’s Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) had to play an important role in the campaign.

On Saturday, a DPCC official confirmed City Spidey on Saturday that the “the idea was proposed but it could not take off".

He, however, denied that the delay had anything to do with the ongoing tussle in Delhi. When asked if any meetings were held on environmental issues in the past few days, the official said on condition of anonymity that “we have received the proposal from the ministry of environment and were asked to work on it. But no official meetings were held so far.”

As per the ministry proposal, the work was related to the environment, and targeted reviews of tree plantation campaigns. But all it was stuck because no meetings were held about it.

Earlier, the Delhi government officials declared that a 70-member team from the environment department and different agencies associated with the Centre and the state government had been charged with implementation of the project throughout the national capital.

The proposal was aimed at including individual residents working on environmental issues, NGOs and Resident Welfare Associations as well.