In a bid to fight air pollution and work towards a clean and green Ahmedabad, the city’s civic body on Tuesday, set aside a budget of Rs 82 crores to get going with its September blueprint. It may be recalled that Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation had earlier drafted a 25-point action plan to combat dust and fume pollution while also, making efforts to increases the city’s green cover.
Now rejuvenated with a huge shot of the corpus, the AMC will soon form 10 air-quality squads and equip them with drones. “We also plan to geo-tag all trees. This will enable making town planning schemes in conformity with green infrastructure. Instead of felling down any tree, proposed road lines will be planned such that they circumvent the trees,” shared a functionary of the Ninth Implementation Committee (AMC) on details being worked out.
He also briefed on the air-action plan which will target phasing out of old vehicles. “An SMS-based pollution under control (PUC) certificate renewal system will be put in place to remind citizens of the due date. Vehicles older than 15 years will gradually be phased out,” he elaborated.
Two major props to the air-action plan will be financial aid to encourage e-rickshaws in all areas to improve last-mile connectivity. A sum of Rs 3 crores has been allocated to this end, added the official.
Ahmedabad will also soon see mist machines mounted on trucks and jeeps doing the rounds in areas which report beyond-permissible limit suspended particulate matter in air. The 25-point plan also ropes in provision for identifying installation of public charging spots for the rapidly increasing e-vehicles.
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