Noida officials on Friday said that they had intensified action against those caught flouting orders issued by the National Green Tribunal (NGT).
On November 23, the NGT directed the district magistrate of Gautam Budh Nagar and other local authorities to strictly act against those burning waste and causing air pollution.
Acting on the directive, the Noida authorities, police, UP pollution control board and other agencies started imposing fines on offenders. The tribunal also directed the DM to conduct weekly review of the cleaning effort and the action taken report from local officials.
Though the Noida officials have already levied R2.16 crore penalty on offenders, including realtors and contractors, apart from common citizens, it has only been able to collect R59.36 lakh from them so far.
“Between December 30, 2016 and January 5, 2017, we deposited R59.36 lakh in the NGT account. We’re in the process of collecting the remaining amount from the violators. We’ll park the money in the NGT coffers once we have it,” Shishir Singh, additional chief executive officer, Noida, said.
The green tribunal has also directed the local authorities to act against polluters as part of the collective effort to improve air quality.
The Gautam Budh Nagar DM, who is also the nodal officer when it comes to seeking action taken reports, has been meeting top Noida officials every week at the Sector 27 office.
The Noida officials have also been conducting site inspections in residential and industrial sectors over the last twelve days to ensure solid waste is dumped only at designated places. They even had garbage removed from many vacant plots after receiving complaints from residents.
“Today, we cleared waste that had been dumped in Sector 22 near National Highway-24. There could be no garbage pile-up in this area as it will raise a stink and cause inconvenience to nearby residents,” a Noida official said.
On January 5, the 12-day site inspection aimed at clearing waste across Noida came to an end.
“We’ll resume the inspection after a while. The exercise was aimed primarily at addressing the residents’ complaints regarding random garbage disposal. We cleared waste from many areas where the pile-up distressed residents,” the official said.
