Why National Green Tribunal Has Stopped Construction Activity in Noida Extension

While constructing buildings, it is important to ensure that you do not violate the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) ’s or National Green Tribunal (NGT) ’s norms on dust emissions. If these norms are violated, the relevant authorities may order that the construction activities be stopped. If the developers do not obey the order, the violation would lead to seizure of buildings and the matter might be escalated to the NGT.

On April 9, the NGT ordered that construction activity be stopped on either side of the road along the 2-km stretch from NH-24 to Char Murti Chowk in Noida Extension and Golf Course, Gurgaon. NGT in its order observed that construction activity in certain areas of Delhi NCR is leading to unusually high dust emissions in the air. As of now, a number of developers have not taken protective measures to prevent this from happening. This violates the norms stipulated by the Environment Ministry’s Environment Impact Assessment Guidance Manual for buildings, construction, townships and area development projects.    

What does the Environment Ministry’s guidance manual say?

According to the environment ministry’s guidance manual, construction machinery and vehicles that carry building materials emit dust and toxic materials polluting the environment. During construction, the dust emitted contains brick, silica, wood and asbestos. Asbestos is particularly harmful. As it is difficult to isolate these elements, the quality of air diminishes during construction. According to certain estimates, the pollutants emitted during construction are source of PM2.5, a toxic particulant that can be very harmful when it enters human lungs. Oxides of nitrogen (NOx) are also toxic pollutants found during construction which might form into ground-level ozone and urban smog.

How do you mitigate dust emissions?

If you live in the vicinity of hectic construction activity, here are a few guidelines from the environment ministry that could help mitigate dust emissions:

Watering the road surfaces, cleaning vehicles and using air extraction equipment and covering scaffolding in under-construction projects. Covering sheets should be used to prevent dust dispersion at buildings and infrastructure sites.

Containment should be built around storage tanks and material stores to prevent spillages from entering watercourses.

Using cleaner fuel and on-road inspections for black smoke generating machinery. The diesel generator sets should also comply with the environment norms.

Only vehicles with `pollution under control’ certificate should ply on roads.

Even though paving of roads is a costly measure, it is more of a permanent solution to dust control.

Another measure which the MoEF recommends is to reduce the speed of a vehicle to 20 kmph. Speed bumps can accomplish this. If speed reduction does not bring down fugitive dust effectively, it may divert traffic to nearby paved areas.

Necessary care should be taken to ensure that all material storages and warehouses are adequately covered and contained so that these storages and warehouses are not exposed to wind on the site leading to dust or particulate emissions. Fugitive dust can be brought down by using fabrics and plastics for covering piles of soils and debris.

Besides air pollution, rampant construction activities also have great implications for the Eco-sensitive Zones in India . In Delhi-NCR, construction activity around the ESZ of Okhla has already stalled residential projects in Noida.

Want to read more on how to keep your house pollution free? Indoor plants could be the answer.