Earlier this week, the Supreme Court (SC) had advised all Delhi government and Central government offices in NCR to ask their employees to work from home, so that the emission of fuel could be curbed, with less vehicles plying on the roads of the Capital.
In fact, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had also requested SC to give orders to impose a complete lockdown in the Capital to control pollution.
However, the Centre has decided not to go by the suggestion of the SC. It has written in an affidavit to the SC that instead of imposing work-from-home, employees should opt for carpooling wherever possible. The Centre’s affidavit states that as per data, many Central government employees do not commute by personal transport, and therefore, no imposition of work-from-home is required for them.
According to the Centre, they are on course as far as normalisation of functioning post-COVID is concerned; and that imposing work-from-home at this point will act as a disadvantage.
Delhi’s air quality index stood at 389 at 9 a.m. this morning, that is, November 17. It had slipped into the severe zone on November 16 and was recorded at 403 at 4 p.m. The air quality in Faridabad (350), Ghaziabad (368), Greater Noida (358), Gurugram (354) and Noida (369) was also in the ‘very poor’ category.
