Yadav Reviews UP's Air Pollution Action Plan Ahead of Winter

Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Bhupender Yadav reviewed Uttar Pradesh's air pollution action plan for the Delhi-NCR region at a meeting in Lucknow on Friday with Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and senior state officials.

Minister of State for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Kirtivardhan Singh, Uttar Pradesh Minister for Environment and Forest Dr. Arun Kumar, and Minister of Transport (Independent Charge) Dayashankar Singh were present.

Adityanath welcomed the measures being taken to curb air pollution in Delhi-NCR and directed state officials to act on the various steps discussed without delay. He thanked the Union Minister for holding the review and for his guidance.

Yadav stressed that the period before winter must be used to implement pollution control measures in mission mode, calling for accelerated execution, stronger coordination between agencies and strict enforcement. "Timely execution, effective coordination and strict enforcement will be critical to achieving visible improvements in Delhi-NCR's air quality," he said.

On road dust, the Minister asked for priority to be given to end-to-end paving and greening of roads with local shrubs and grasses, along with pothole identification and repair, footpath and pavement construction, roadside greening and deep cleaning. He called for gaps in the deployment of Mechanical Road Sweeping Machines to be closed quickly and for the machines to be geo-tagged for real-time monitoring and accountability.

Reviewing electric mobility, Yadav said the deployment of electric buses and installation of EV charging stations across NCR municipal corporations in Uttar Pradesh should be expedited, noting large gaps in the existing fleet. He congratulated the state government on the rapid increase in tree cover.

On end-of-life vehicles, he sought faster issuance of No Objection Certificates for transferring eligible vehicles outside the NCR, alongside promotion of scientific scrapping and quicker replacement of old polluting vehicles with electric ones under the Parivartan Scheme. He asked for Automatic Number Plate Recognition systems at all fuel stations to enforce the "No PUCC, No Fuel" rule, and for traffic congestion hotspots to be identified and addressed on a mission mode.

For industrial pollution, Yadav emphasised faster installation of Online Continuous Emission Monitoring Systems and Air Pollution Control Devices. He reviewed construction and demolition waste management and asked that secondary collection centres be set up quickly. On municipal solid waste and biomass burning, he called for legacy waste liquidation on a war footing, and on stubble burning, for gaps in the procurement of Crop Residue Management machinery to be bridged, backed by intensive information, education and communication campaigns and farmer training.

Yadav said air pollution can be tackled effectively only through a whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach, stressing strict implementation of government advisories, more sanitation workers in line with population ratios, and the use of rules, technology and innovation. He urged citizens to join hands with authorities in the fight against air pollution.

Secretary, MoEFCC, Tanmay Kumar; Chairperson, Commission for Air Quality Management, Rajesh Verma; senior officers of the ministry and the Uttar Pradesh government; and officials from the Central Pollution Control Board and the Uttar Pradesh State Pollution Control Board attended the meeting.