New Delhi Apr 24 PTI The Delhi government is conducting an extensive ground truth survey to collect data on 258 extinct water bodies in the capital as part of its one final effort to save them There are 1043 water bodies in the capital All have been allotted unique identification numbers while 1014 have been mapped on the GIS platform The Wetland Authority of Delhi constituted in 2019 is now making rapid strides to notify at least 20 of them under Wetland Conservation and Management Rules 2017 by January next year according to officials These include Sanjay Lake Hauz Khas Lake Bhalswa Lake Tikri Khurd Lake Welcome Jheel Daryapur Kalan and Sardar Sarovar Lake Once notified the water bodies will be protected against encroachments dumping of garbage discharge of untreated wastewater and effluent from industries and setting up and expansion of industries etc In March the Wetland Authority of Delhi had received a request from land-owning agencies to delete 258 extinct water bodies from the official list of 1043 as these have gone extinct over the years due to large-scale encroachment negligence and degradation According to officials private buildings have come up in place of 62 water bodies 52 are now being used to provide public services 37 are untraceable 14 have been encroached upon by educational institutes 11 have been turned into parks and recreational centres 6 are being used for commercial services and unauthorised colonies have come up on 5 A technical committee is now reviewing the request for the deletion of water bodies from the official list they said At a meeting held on March 28 the panel proposed to conduct a survey to ascertain the level of degradation of these water bodies and prepare a Red Document -- which will include those that cannot be saved -- and a Green Document listing the ones which can be reclaimed and restored The water bodies that cannot be revived will be deleted from the list However all efforts will be made to restore the water bodies even if theres a five percent chance of doing so an official said Field teams have been constituted for ground truthing These will collect crucial information such as the historic spread of these water bodies their capacity how they went extinct who was responsible what has come up in their place etc a member of the technical committee said on the condition of anonymity One of the teams has already surveyed a cluster of eight to nine extinct water bodies in north Delhi district The reports are being compiled The process is going to take some time another member of the panel said The panel is likely to ask the encroachers to compensate for the loss of water bodies by providing alternate land for the development of wetlands The purpose is to discourage further encroachment of wetlands in Delhi Those responsible should be penalised a panel member said We will also try to remove the encroachment wherever feasible If a structure has come up on a part of a wetland we will try to remove it It could be our last attempt to salvage some of the extinct wetlands he said PTI GVS RCJ

New Delhi Mar 21 PTI Industries in NCR areas where PNG infrastructure and supply is not available have to completely switch over to biomass fuels by the year end the Centres Commission for Air Quality Management CAQM has directed It also said that the maximum permissible emission standards for particulate matter for the biomass-fuelled boilers should be 80 milligrams per cubic metre However such industries shall aim for an emission level of 50 milligrams per cubic metre through suitable technology upgrades and installation of requisite air pollution control devices such as bag filters cyclonic filters wet scrubbers etc to be decided by the individual units based on their onsite technical requirements the latest CAQM directions read While switching to the use of agro-residue biomass fuels on a regular basis all such industries in NCR have to apply for and obtain a revised consent to operate from the respective pollution control board with added conditions to the effect viz permission to use bio-fuels and prescribed level of emission standards particularly for controlling the particulate matter emissions The panel had earlier restricted the operations of industries not using PNG or cleaner fuels in NCR to only 5 days a week Later it received representations from various organisations associations and individuals for permitting the use of biomass fuels in addition to PNG citing that biomass fuels are much more environment friendly than fossil fuels such as coal The CAQM said that an analysis of PM emissions from industries presently using biomass fuels for boiler operations indicates that biomass fuels are much superior than conventional fossil fuels like coal diesel oil etc in terms of carbon emissions The PM emissions are much controlled and that the advantages of using such fuels far outweigh the environmental and technical concerns towards proper scientific disposal of large volumes of rice husk and other biomass as also the rampant open burning of paddy straw it noted Internationally biomass fuels are categorised and used as relatively cleaner fuels and technical reports and scientific studies indicate that biomass fuels like rice husk and paddy straw etc are carbon neutral fuels as the carbon dioxide released while using such fuels is less than the amount of carbon dioxide sequestrated during the entire growth cycle of the biomass thus facilitating net carbon neutrality PTI GVS RCJ