The Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) on Monday issued notices to 38 top construction sites — including extension works of Parliament House Annexe building and additional building for the Supreme Court adjoining Pragati Maidan — for flouting norms on air pollution and causing dust pollution in the city. The committee has also imposed a fine of Rs50,000 each on them.
Calling them a major source of air pollution in the Capital, Delhi Government officials said fines were imposed after a field survey by the DPCC found these construction sites were flouting norms on air pollution.
The officials said while these projects had obtained prior environmental clearance from the Ministry of Environment and Forest or from the State Environment Impact Assessment Authority (SEIAA), Delhi, the mandatory ‘consent to operate’ clearance was not sought from the DPCC. “The existing situation of these projects gives rise to reasonable apprehension that they are either still in the construction stage or have completed construction/are operational without the mandatory ‘consent to operate’ clearance,” they added.
The list of the construction sites includes the building of Deen Dayal Upadhyaya College building at Dwarka
Sector 3, Aloft Aerocity hotel at Delhi Aerocity, expansion of Hindu College at University Enclave, Shaheed Sukhdev College of Business Studies at Rohini Sector 16, JMJ hotel at plot no. 1 in Wazirpur, multilevel car parking-cum-shopping mall in Wazirpur, Vegal Mall at Dwarka Sector 14, Parsvnath Mall commercial complex, construction at PNB headquarters at plot no 4 in Dwarka Sector 10, development of heliport at Rohini, construction of corporate office of ONGC Videsh Ltd at Nelson Mandela Marg, Vasant Kuj, Expansion and modernisation of British School at Dr Jose P Rizal Marg, Chankyapuri.
Besides, the fine was imposed on several low cost housing projects being constructed by Delhi Government, Delhi Development Authority (DDA) and private builders that include construction of housing complex ‘La Tropicana, Khyberpass, development of Minto Road area (construction of 140 type V and 104 type VI flats at DDU marg, mega housing project at Vasant Kunj, expansion of group Housing Metro park at Dwarka Mor and construction of Delhi Armed Police Line and residences at Dwarka Sector 9.
According to the officials, some of them responded to DPCC notices. Aloft Aerocity Hotel and PNB headquarters project have already paid penalty of Rs 50,000 while the additional building complex at Supreme Court’s contractor in its reply requested to review the penalty as coarse aggregate does not produced any dust and coarse sand alone is stacked at site not for more than one or two days and stored sand cannot be kept covered for long as sand loaders keep on feeding the plant from the sand stack.
It may be noted that following the directions of NGT, DPCC has issued notices to over 200 construction sites and sought clarification from them too.
