With November at the doorstep, environmentalists urge central, state governments to focus on the needs of women construction workers.
New Delhi: With November just a few months away, a group of environmentalists today urged the central and state governments to step up coordination to incorporate the needs of vulnerable groups such as informal workers, including women construction workers, in efforts to curb air pollution in the Delhi NCR region.
“Air Pollution remains an elite issue; Mahila Hosuing Trust (MHT) and Help Delhi Breathe have worked to include marginalised and invisiblised groups such as construction workers in the conversation through our campaign in Delhi. This platform has created space for government officials of all hues, and informal workers to come together and engage directly on the successes and challenges in combating air pollution,” said Bijal Brahmbhatt, Director, MHT. She was addressing a roundtable with stakeholders like Help Delhi Breathe, Clean Air Fund, Natural Resources Defense Council, and GDI Partners among others.
November in Delhi NCR is synonymous with the pollution season, when suddenly air quality level starts dropping due to cold weather, construction work, and stubble burning.
Dr Aakash Shrivastava, Head, Centre for Environmental & Occupational Health, Climate Change & Health, an agency which works under the Union Ministry of Health, said, “The exposure to air pollution that marginalised communities face both at home and work is greater. They are simultaneously exposed to other forms of pollution, even while their overall health is already compromised due to the lack of adequate nutrition.”
Dr Shrivastava also opined that air pollution and climate change should be included in the medical curriculum so that when doctors study medicine they automatically become equipped to deal with these issues.
To combat air pollution in Delhi, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal last year had announced a 10-point “winter action plan”. It focuses on dust control, using the Pusa bio-decomposer. It also calls for installing smog towers and checking waste burning and vehicular emissions.
