Just shifting the issue

THE complaints kept pouring in. For the past few months, residents of Siraspur village in North Delhi had badgered the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) about noxious fumes emanating from illegal cottage lead smelters in their locality. A CPCB team paid a "surprise visit" to the area on May 2, only to find the premises deserted and the shutters up.

Shifting from hell to hell

EVERY once in a few years, the authorities of the National Capital Territory of Delhi appear to notice with considerable shock that industries in the city may be polluting the city's atmosphere. When this periodic spasm hits them, it does little but give birth to a committee to look into the problem, and perhaps set a deadline by which polluting industries must shift out of the city.

Delhi hits the dirty track

THE World Health Organization has identified New Delhi as one of the 10 most polluted cities in the world, a dubious distinction that Delhi now shares with other megacities like Mexico City, Seoul and Beijing.

Inaction irks MEF

CONCERNED at the lack of action by 2 Delhi agencies on the Yamuna Action Plan launched in June last year, the Union ministry of environment and forests (MEF) has decided to refer the matter to the prime minister.

What price pollution?

COMPRESSED Natural Gas (CNG)-fuelled 4-wheelers may soon be commercially viable in Delhi following the equipping of a petrol station with facilities to supply the petrol substitute. The station is registering a select number of applicants to convert vehicles to run on petrol and CNG in dual fuel mode.

The gassing of a village

FOR the past 10 years, over 12,000 inhabitants of Meethapur village on Delhi's Badarpur border have been racked with cough and breathing problems that often degenerate into asthma and tuberculosis. The Batra Hospital & Medical Research Centre (BHMRC) -- which caters to Meethapur in the absence of closer medicare centres -- is under regular siege by a steady stream of villagers complaining that their lungs are giving out.

Caught in the crossfire

The people dependent for sustenance on Delhi's largest green belt, "the Ridge", are trapped in the power-grabbing crossfire between the Delhi Administration and various other agencies. The Delhi Administration's environment and forest department has decided to convert the Ridge into a reserved forest and has locked horns with the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) over the control of the Capital's forests.

DDT milk

If you live in Delhi, chances are that you are drinking more DDT and other pesticides with your milk than is good for you. A survey conducted by the Karnal-based National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI) in the Capital has revealed that the pesticide contamination in milk supplied by the Delhi Milk Scheme (DMS) runs far above safety standards set by the World Health Organisation.

Dashes of fire

The days of the scarecrow are over. A team led by R K Bhatnagar at the Indian Agriculture Research Institute in Delhi have found that reflective ribbons, dubbed "dashes of fire" by ornithologists, tied a metre above standing crops, frighten birds away. The ribbons, spaced a metre-and-half apart and about a metre overground, sway in the breeze and reflect sunlight, keeping birds at bay.

Luxurious guzzling

THE 17 five-star hotels in Delhi try to do justice to the exotic aqua pura, the drink of dreams. pure and simple, they not only guzzle water that the city can scant afford, they refuse to recycle it as well. At 800 kilolitres (kl) daily per hotel, their water consumption could meet the entire daily requirements of the 1.3 million slum-dwellers in the city. The Maurya Sheraton of the ITC group has an average daily consumption of about 1,000 kl, of which the New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMQ supplies 400 kl. Its own borewells can easily douse the hotel; it, however,