Final call on use of gensets under GRAP to be taken on Oct 22

The Supreme Court-mandated Environment Pollution (Protection and Control) Authority (EPCA) said that the final call on whether to allow the use of diesel generators when air pollution increases in the Delhi-NCR will be taken on October 22.

The pollution watchdog (EPCA) will also decide on giving relaxation on use of DG sets in particular area.

Last week, EPCA in its annual Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) recommended the pollution regulatory authorities to put ban on use of diesel generators in Delhi and NCR cities of Gurugram, Ghaziabad, Noida, Greater Noida, Faridabad, Sonepat, Panipat and Bahadurgarh from Tuesday.

However, use of generators for emergency and essential services, such as hospitals, railway and metro stations, are excluded from the ban. Until last year, the ban on generators covered only the national capital.

As per the EPCA report, the Haryana government had requested the EPCA to exempt builder-developed colonies and societies which are supplying electricity through generators.

EPCA held a meeting on Friday with the senior state government officials and pollution department officials from Delhi and neighbouring states. 

EPCA member Sunita Narain said, “A notice can be issued to industries which fall under the ambit of GRAP. They have to use power from the state and during outages, they can use diesel generators which will be monitored carefully.”

The officials told EPCA that power outages in NCR cities of Ghaziabad, Noida and Greater Noida are minimal. However, EPCA said there have been a number of complaints of heavy power cuts.

The officials said they will have to assess the situation and get back to EPCA on October 22.