GHAZIABAD: The municipal corporation of Ghaziabad, where the air quality is one of the worst in the country, has this time received only a fourth of the funds it was sent by the Centre last year to tackle pollution. Officials said GMC got only Rs 15 crore under the 15th Finance Commission this year. In 2021, it had received Rs 60.5 crore to contain pollution.
GMC has written to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and the state government about the steep decline in funds. The executive committee of the corporation, however, met on Friday to decide what to do with the funds it had received.
“We are disappointed with the funds we got this year. It is Rs 45.5 crore less than the last time,” said Mahendra Singh Tanwar, the municipal commissioner. “When we sought to know the reason behind it, we were told that GMC did not qualify for the maximum bracket this year,” he added.
According to the CPCB’s formula, the grant depends on the number of ‘good’ air days a civic body has seen in a year. For instance, a city with more than 15% ‘good’ air days will be eligible for even a 100% grant. “We were told that the number of good air days was far lower this time. So, the funds were curtailed,” Tanwar said.
The fact that Ghaziabad received less funds to curtail pollution — and the calculation behind it — raised many eyebrows. Ghaziabad has been ranked second on the list of the most polluted cities in the world on a PM2.5 parameter by Swiss organisation IQAir. The average PM2.5 concentration in the district was recorded at 102 µg/m3 against the country average of 58.1 µg/m3. The average AQI in the city, especially during the winter, is among the worst in the country.
But there is a difference in the way GMC calculated its eligibility for the funds and the CPCB did it. While GMC did not take into account the air quality reading in Loni — one of the country’s worst pollution hotspots — because it has a separate municipality, CPCB included it while calculating the funds.
“If we exclude Loni and take into account the readings of the three other stations — Indirapuram, Vasundhara and Sanjay Nagar — the number of good air days will rise to 21%. But CPCB has included Loni though it has a separate civic body,” Tanwar said.
GMC has urged the state government to look into the issue. “We will also present our case before the CPCB. Hopefully, we will get the remaining amount. We need funds to tackle bad air in Ghaziabad,” the official said.
For now, GMC has decided to undertake a massive plantation drive in some of the pollution hotspots, like Harsha compound, Vrindavan Garden, GT Road, with the funds it has got.
A budget of Rs 3 crore has been earmarked for solid waste management and developing waste processing plants.
