We as residents of Delhi NCR are all aware about the rampant pollution in our area. We can see in the distance the buildings the trees tops that are engulfed in a haze. Its first week of October and I fear we are once again in that period when we would all be having our daily dose of PM2.5 & PM10, each time we breath.

Under this initiative of #FightingPollutionTogether I invite all residents of Delhi NCR alongwith the chief ministers of the states Delhi, UP, Punjab & Haryana to come together and solve the rising problem of pollution. I suggest the following steps to be taken to fight this menace:

1. Firecrackers: Yes, we do celebrate Diwali with lot of fervor and pomp but can we not celebrate it without the fire crackers.  Imagine the thought of the uncle staying across the street coughing daily in the morning. Imagine the people with hearing disorders cringe with every burst of that cracker. Imagine the pets and street dogs cowering below the sofas and below parked cars afraid from the noise and ruckus. If a complete ban is difficult to adopt lets go for green crackers, but with a disclaimer. Green crackers do not mean they do not pollute. They do pollute!!! Just that they pollute a little less than the normal ones. Inspite of the Supreme Court ban on crackers, I have seen people driving down to Hapur, Dadri, Dasna just so they can buy the crackers and burst it in DelhiNCR. A nudge by the Chief Ministers in public to this tendency will go a long way in dissuading the people who are planning to circumvent the ban this way.

2. Go Electric: The current state of CNG driven rickshaws and especially tempos is pathetic. They are old, running on in-efficient polluting engines and are ill-maintained. A scheme of exchange of polluting rickshaws, autos, tempos with e-rickshaws will make sure that people adopt more e-rickshaws. The exchange of mobile phones is running successfully as we all know. We can adopt a similar mechanism here.
Further, lets replace the existing fuel powered buses by electric buses. They would lead to a cleaner and silent mode of transport.  I urge Chief Ministers of Haryana, Delhi & UP  to urgently replace the existing fleets of buses with electric buses in Delhi NCR and surrounding areas. 

3. Mechanized Sweeping: The environment of Delhi NCR and surrounding region is dust prone.The manual sweeping of the roads does not help at all. There are vehicles that manually sweep and suck up this dust with the municipal corporations. Let us completely stop manually sweeping of roads, re-skills the existing manual sweepers to operate these vehicles. Increase the number of these vehicles and make sure that each and every road is cleaned by this method. Further, the disposal of this collected dust should be in a eco-friendly way too.

4. Crop Burning: Last but certainly not the least, is the issue of crop burning. This requires a united effort by the chief minsters of the states. Let us create more awareness &  incentivize eco-friendly harvest & disposal of paddy crop. The multi ethnic population of Delhi NCR has a large part of its population from these regions where, the paddy crop stubble burning happens. The sons and daughters of farmers toiling in the fields are living in Delhi NCR for their studies are or earning their livelihoods. This awareness if created amongst the farmers could help in them adopting eco-friendly ways quickly.