Gurugram: Only 5% large building sites on dust portal, checks to track all

GURUGRAM: The state pollution board will carry out a survey in the city to identify any construction and demolition projects that aren’t registered on the government’s portal that was created to monitor if all environmental norms are being followed. It is mandatory for construction sites larger than 500sqm to install PM2.5 and PM10 sensors that send live feed to the online portal, according to directives by the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) in NCR. So far, not a single construction site in the city has installed the mandatory sensors, officials of
the Haryana State Pollution Control Board (HSPCB) said on Tuesday.

According to the district administration, there are around 3,000 large construction sites in the city. Of
these, just 176 — just about 5% — are registered on the dust pollution control portal.
“We will conduct a survey to identify how many large construction units are yet to be registered in the
portal. There are several sites where construction isn’t going on at the moment, but they aren’t registered,”
said Kuldeep Singh, regional officer, HSPCB, Gurgaon.
The survey will start this month and will be carried out for a fortnight. Six HSPCB teams, each with three
members, will carry out the survey.

The projects found to be violating the norms will be penalised. “We will stop construction activities,
impose penalties and prosecute the developers in the environmental court. These units are responsible for adding pollution and they need to take corrective measures,” he added. Haryana had launched real-time monitoring of pollution levels at construction sites this January, following up on directions of the CAQM in October 2021. The portal features a live dashboard to reflect ambient air quality status at specific areas. Sites must also fence off the construction area with green sheets, sprinkle water and cover vehicles carrying construction and demolition (C&D) wasteto mitigate dust pollution.