LocalCircles, a community social media platform, conducted a survey to understand how the ambitious plan that received Supreme Court’s nod in 2016 to tackle air pollution is being implemented across Delhi, Gurugram, Noida, Faridabad and Ghaziabad.

The plan, GRAP or “Graded Response Action Plan” involves agencies – municipal corporations, traffic police, pollution control committee, transport department, police department, metro corporation, public works department, power plants.

These departments are required to undertake certain measures in their authority to control the amount of pollution released in the city’s air. It is a set of guidelines for state agencies to follow when the air quality index moves from “Moderate to Poor”, “Very Poor”, “Severe” to “Severe +” categories.

The survey received more than 20,000 responses from citizens living in Delhi, Gurugram, Noida, Faridabad and Ghaziabad.

The survey revealed that only 20-25 per cent of citizens in these five cities said that all the GRAP guidelines are being followed in their respective areas.

The survey also looked into the general perception of people in these five cities on their willingness to avoid firecrackers during festival celebration by implementing a ban on sale of firecrackers.

It revealed that at an aggregate level, 79 per cent of residents of Delhi NCR want a ban on the sale of regular crackers this Diwali. 32 per cent of them, however, support the sale of green crackers. 47 per cent residents want a complete ban on sale of all crackers. 20 per cent want sale of all crackers to be permitted, while 1 per cent don’t have an opinion.

The survey also pointed out that only 22 per cent of citizens in the region believe that Central and State Governments are working on reducing pollution in the last 12 months.

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