Won’t inconvenience public, will scrap scheme if it doesn’t work out: Arvind Kejriwal

The Delhi government Friday announced a slew of measures — most of which is to be implemented from January 1 — in order to combat high levels of pollution in the capital, especially during winter.

Kejriwal said the modalities, such as exemption under the scheme and period of implementation among others, would be discussed.
According to the CM, the government was planning to implement the scheme at a later stage but the Delhi court’s concerns and the subsequent panic called for immediate action. “There was panic that pollution has increased so much… something drastic has to be done,”
he said.

The Delhi High Court had said the city had become a “gas chamber” while taking note of air quality monitoring data on the high amount of pollutants in the capital.

Kejriwal also spoke about the series of measures that his government plans to take to strengthen public transport in Delhi — redesigning roads, adding 10,000 buses to the existing fleet and constructing dedicated elevated roads for buses.

“From April 1, we will start vacuum cleaning of all PWD roads. That will suck the dust…There are lots of reasons for pollution in Delhi, detailed by IIT Kanpur. Burning of trash is one of them. We will come down heavily on that and penalise those burning trash,” said the CM.

He also spoke about the use of the recently launched Swachh Delhi mobile application to curb activities that cause pollution.
“The Swachh Delhi App has received 50,000 complaints, of which 42,000 have been addressed. This app will also be used to track down trash burning and polluting vehicles from now on,” said Kejriwal.

MLAs’ salary hike, Punjab polls also feature in CM’s speech

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal also spoke about the increase in MLAs’ salaries at the summit. “There are around 41 crorepatis among AAP MLAs. I am one of them because I have an IRS flat too. But that is not income,” he said.

Elaborating on the hike, he said, “The increase is from Rs 12,000 to Rs 50,000 in salary. Another Rs 50,000 is constituency allowance. So that is 1 lakh. The rest are reimbursements.”

“If the Prime Minister’s salary is less than ours, it should be increased,” he added.

He also claimed that the AAP’s survey had hinted at the party having an edge in the Punjab elections. “Our survey says we are winning. I won’t be surprised if Delhi results are repeated.” However, he refuted claims that he will be the face of the party in Punjab polls.