Deja vu of deadline & duck

The Telegraph , Thursday, March 19, 2009
Correspondent : JAYANTA BASU TT FOR CITY - POISON AIR
“It is unfortunate that the state government is not in a position to carry out the court orders in time. We still doubt whether the order will be carried out at all. But still we are providing them time.” — Chief Justice S.S. Nijjar on Tuesday

If the chief justice is in “doubt” over the government carrying out the court’s order regarding auto pollution, petitioner Subhash Dutta is in no doubt whatsoever.

“I am convinced that the government will not be in a position to carry out the court orders by July 31,” said the green activist, a day after advocate-general Balai Ray cited elections as the latest pushback excuse.

“Only the government’s excuse changes, otherwise everything is like an action replay,” said Dutta.

Tuesday the 17th was deja vu for Subhash Dutta in court.

Yet again, he saw the government expressing its inability to meet a deadline to clean Calcutta’s air.

Yet again, he heard the bench berate the government and then give it one more deadline.

Yet again, he shook his bald pate in frustration for a brief moment, allowed himself a wry smile, gathered his pollution papers and then strode out to fight another day.

Dutta’s present crusade for clean air in Calcutta dates back to March 2007, when — on the high court’s suggestion — he had filed a petition for directives and deadlines to be set for the phaseout of old and polluting vehicles that were jeopardising the health of the city, particularly its children.

“Now that the elections have been declared and campaigns by political parties have started, the police are busy with the election process. So, they can’t run after two-stroke autos and seize them. Similar is the case with phasing out old vehicles. This can only be done after the elections are over.” — advocate-general Balai Ray in court on Tuesday

“What was stopping the police from acting against illegal autos, polluting autos and old vehicles between July 18, 2008 (when the high court first set the deadline), and March 2, 2009 (when the Lok Sabha election dates were announced)?” demanded Dutta.

The high court had on July 18, 2008, set a December 31, 2008, deadline for polluting autos and an end-March 2009 deadline for transport and commercial vehicles more than 15 years old.

“By their own submission in court on Tuesday, in the past eight months, only 1,066 autos could be converted to clean fuel, out of around 70,000 polluting three-wheelers. Less than 50 illegal autos have been seized, though at least 30,000 such autos ply in the city,” pointed out the petitioner.

“In the case of 15-year-old vehicles, nothing concrete has been done apart from holding some stray meetings. There has been no move to check auto emission test centres and identify rogue ones.

A negligible amount of katatel (spurious fuel on which most two-stroke autos run) has been seized. What election was the police force busy with all this while?” wondered Dutta.

“If Delhi, Bangalore and other cities can phase out the old vehicles, why can’t Bengal?” — the two-judge bench of Chief Justice Nijjar and Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghosh on Tuesday

The answer lies in the government’s deliberate — and diabolical — act of slowing down the drive against air pollution. “Just see the government’s track record regarding air pollution. It is nothing but a series of failures to meet court directives and deadlines,” said Dutta.

“The government has scant regard for the health and well-being of the people of Calcutta, especially the children. It has no intention of doing anything about the pollution problem.

It will keep pushing back deadlines on some pretext or the other. If required it will trigger pandemonium closer to the next deadline so that the court is forced to give more time on law-and-order grounds,” he predicted.

So what will the lone crusader do now? Pray for a predominantly “non-government monitoring committee” to be appointed by the court in yet another attempt to get the government to toe the line.

The present monitoring committee chaired by the chief secretary has done precious little.

 
SOURCE : Thursday, March 19, 2009
 


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