Delhi environment minister Asim Ahmed Khan wrote to Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar that checking air pollution must be taken on priority.

With the National Capital Region being highly populated, it is difficult to pinpoint pollutant sources in the city.

The city minister has requested the Union minister to convene a meeting of stakeholders in the NCR. “Several towns of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh fall within the NCR and may I request you to ask them to set up joint checkposts well within their territories to ensure that overloaded vehicles can be checked and turned back before they enter Delhi and prepare an action plan on the lines of the one under preparation in Delhi,” the letter said.

Also, crop residue burning has massively contributed to air pollution, it added. A “holistic” approach adopted across states can help bring down air pollution, he wrote.

The letter mentions that an action plan to improve air quality in Delhi as recommended by a high power committee headed by the then chief secretary of Delhi was sent to the Union Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change in February.

“This action plan was limited to the areas in which the Delhi government can check the rise of air pollution. This action plan specifically focussed on short-term and long-term measures to control air pollution in the capital,” the latest letter said.