Tensions are boiling over Delhi’s worsening air quality, as AAP unleashes explosive charges against the ruling dispensation. The party accuses officials of tampering with AQI figures by installing monitors in pollution-free green havens, masking the capital’s dire environmental reality.
According to AAP, this calculated ploy involves setting up stations in open, greenery-rich locations with minimal vehicle movement or industrial activity. The result? Skewed data that suggests air quality is improving, even as citizens choke on hazardous fumes in urban hotspots.
Saurabh Bharadwaj, AAP’s Delhi unit president, didn’t mince words. In a fiery social media post, he labeled the tactic a ‘new fraud’ designed to mislead the masses. He criticized the CAQM, dominated by center-nominated IAS officers, for turning a blind eye. ‘This system serves IAS officers, not the ailing public,’ Bharadwaj asserted.
He drew parallels to an earlier April incident, where monitors popped up in idyllic spots like IGNOU’s forested backend, NSIT campus, and serene Yamuna shores. These areas, lacking factories, traffic jams, or crowds, inevitably yield benign readings—hardly representative of Delhi’s pollution plague.
AAP insists on immediate relocation of monitors to polluted epicenters: factory belts, arterial roads clogged with vehicles, and teeming residential clusters. Only then, they say, can genuine data inform policies to slash emissions and safeguard health.
With smog alerts looming, this row highlights deep mistrust in environmental governance. As political barbs fly, the real losers are Delhi’s millions gasping for clean air amid the haze.