The Aurangabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) administrator A K Pandey has inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for clean air with the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&C) and the State Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD).
Aurangabad is one of the million-plus cities amongst the six nodal municipal corporations of Urban Agglomeration Maharashtra to ink the MoU. The AMC will receive the benefit of Rs 87 crore in five years (2021-22 to 2025-26) to control the increasing pollution and render 'clean air' in the city. The MoU was a part of the 15th Finance Commission.
From November 23 to 24, the union MoEF&C and Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) hosted a ' Sensitisation cum Review Workshop on National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) and XV Finance Commission Million Plus Cities Challenge Fund' in Mumbai. The urban local bodies (ULBs) from Western Region including Gujarat, Goa, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, attended the workshop.
Pandey informed on several environment-friendly actions taken to control the air pollution in the city by the AMC. He suggested that starting garbage processing plants (under Solid Waste Management); including public transport system in the form of Smart City Bus (to control pollution created because of personal vehicles), building bicycle tracks, developing vertical gardens, used sweeping machines to build dust-free roads and executed Kham River Rejuvenation Project, among others.
The MoU recognises the role and responsibilities of the concerned stakeholders to attain the National Level Particulate Matter (PM) pollution reduction target of 20-30% by the year 2024.
The MoEF&C minister Bhupendra Yadav, state environment minister Aditya Thackeray and minister of state (MoS) Sanjay Bansode were there at the event.
