Petition Asks Narendra Modi to Control Pollution in Delhi
As pollution level in Delhi has worsened during the first week of November, an online petition for the Indian government has appeared on a community response site.
By Rakesh Raman
These days, the Prime Minister (PM) of India Narendra Modi is leading a song-and-dance team of his ministers and other toadies who are creating a hype about Swachh Bharat (Clean India) project.
However, let alone other parts of the country, Modi’s mission has not touched even the capital of India New Delhi, which continues to be the world’s most polluted and dirtiest city.
As pollution level in Delhi has worsened during the first week of November, an online petition on a community response site has urged Modi and others to control pollution in the National Capital Region (NCR).
The petition says that children, elderly, and patients are among the affected groups of people, while construction dust and increasing number of vehicles are the main causes of deadly pollution.
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“We, the citizen of NCR, demand that immediate steps be taken under the leadership of Prime Minister of India and PM Office to bring down pollution level of NCR to acceptable levels,” the petition says.
As a result of increasing pollution, millions of people in Delhi are facing a threat of silent death while hundreds of them are already dying everyday with vehicular and dust pollution.
In order to save the citizens, the Government of India, held a meeting last week to discuss measures to control air and dust pollution.
The meeting was held by Secretary, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Ajay Narayan Jha, with senior officers from the NCR states including Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Punjab, and Delhi.
As the results of the government’s steps to control pollution are not yet visible, the local citizens have created the online petition on change.org website.
More than 26,000 supporters have already signed the petition, demanding that access to clean air and clean water should be their fundamental right.
By Rakesh Raman, who is a government award-winning journalist and social scientist. You also can visit the REAL VOTER – Politics in India Information Center that he manages.
