Yogi Adityanath and Bhupendra Yadav
Uttar Pradesh Officials Review Anti-Pollution Strategy Ahead of Winter
Lucknow: Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav convened on Friday to evaluate a comprehensive anti-pollution strategy for eight districts in Uttar Pradesh’s National Capital Region (NCR). The districts reviewed include Noida, Ghaziabad, Meerut, Hapur, and Bulandshahr, as air quality issues are expected to worsen with the onset of winter.
Highlighting UP cities’ performance under the National Clean Air Programme, Yadav said Lucknow has secured the top spot in the ‘Clean Air Survey’ covering 130 cities across the country, while other UP cities, including Agra, have also performed commendably. “Since last Dec, we’ve held over 30 meetings and have now started working on the city specific plans for each state. Recently, we also met with the heads of the panchayats, zila parishads, nagar palikas, and municipal corporations from 63 smaller cities in the NCR,” he said, adding that nodal officers had been directed to be appointed to oversee implementation at the local level.
Yadav said discussions covered old vehicles, the state’s EV policy, electric buses, mandatory pollution certificates and aggregator vehicles. Yadav said he has held similar meetings with Haryana CM Nayab Singh Saini and Delhi CM Rekha Gupta. He said a detailed, city-specific action plan had been prepared for all municipal corporations in the NCR region.
The meeting was held at the CM’s residence in Lucknow. Efforts to control pollution will be further advanced through upcoming meetings with the CMs of Rajasthan and Punjab. Yadav added that the Centre was also working with Union agriculture minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan to address the issue of stubble burning ahead of the harvest season, in coordination with agriculture ministers from all states concerned.