Use of water sprinklers in two shifts, focus on unpaved roads to beat dust

New Delhi: Following lieutenant governor VK Saxena's orders to undertake a dust mitigation campaign in the city, Public Works Department (PWD) has prepared a plan and decided to take on rent water sprinklers, which will work in two shifts from Oct-Nov.
Potholes and unpaved roads are significant contributors to dust accumulation on the roads. According to govt estimates, 26% of the air pollution on account of PM2.5 is caused by dust generated from roads, pavements, footpaths, central verges and construction and demolition activities.Officials said tenders had been issued for road repair in all three zones — North, South and East.
Similar road maintenance projects were planned in the past, too, but hadn't yielded the desired results. In Feb 2023, former PWD minister Manish Sisodia had announced that the roads in the national capital would be "pothole-free" within a month.
Potholes on the bituminous layers of roads are a major worry for PWD. They are created mostly because of the accumulation of water, eroding roads. During the monsoon, the department had to carry out several pothole repair drives. Earlier, it undertook repair work under its ‘one road per week per zone' initiative.
Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) has laid down 27 anti-dust norms, out of which 14 are mandatory for the civic agencies to follow. As part of a pilot last year at a construction site in Nangloi, PWD site engineers were asked to implement the mandatory rules and fill up a self-audit form. This project is now being taken forward and the monitoring of such sites will be done through CCTV cameras, said a PWD official.
In 2022, PWD spent around Rs 4 crore to procure truck-mounted anti-smog guns, which spray water to settle dust and other suspended particles in the atmosphere, and Rs 19 crore has been allotted this year to hire smog guns. They will be monitored by DPCC, which has okayed the funds allocation on the condition that the machines are geo-tagged.
Govt had been strict on the adherence of the anti-dust norms at construction sites. All construction sites of 20,000 square metres or above must use anti-smog guns and ensure minimum dust pollution.
Between Aug and Sept, PWD received more than 800 complaints about potholes. "The tender work for several roads is under process and work will be awarded soon. Many of the complaints are being resolved and works are halted due to rains," said an official.