[New Delhi]Anil Baijal To Replace Najeeb Jung In Delhi
Former top IAS officer Baijal Is 21st LG Of Delhi
Career bureaucrat Anil Baijal was today appointed as the new Lt Governor of Delhi, a post which has fallen vacant after sudden resignation of Najeeb Jung.
70-year-old Baijal, a 1969 batch IAS officer, had served as Union Home Secretary under the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government besides holding key positions in other ministries.
The President accepted the resignation of Jung and also ordered for appointment of Baijal, who will be the 21st Lt Governor of the national capital.
Baijal had retired from service in 2006 as Secretary, Urban Development Ministry. He is a former vice chairman of Delhi Development Authority.
Baijal was actively associated with the designing and roll-out of Rs 60,000 crore Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) launched by the Manmohan Singh government.
The former bureaucrat was also on the executive council of the think-tank Vivekananda International Foundation, several of whose former members have been appointed to senior positions by the Modi government including National Security Advisor Ajit Doval.
Jung had submitted his resignation on December 22, ending a nearly three-and-half-year-long eventful tenure, mostly marked by bitter confrontation with AAP government
Tag: Najeeb Jung
Anil Baijal To Replace 20th LG Najeeb Jung
Kejriwal Seeks Centre’s Help Against Pollution Menace
[New Delhi] Kejriwal Seeks Centre’s Help To Tackle Pollution Menace
Pollution level breached the safe limit by over 17 times at places, prompting Chief Minister Arvind Kerjriwal to describe Delhi as a “gas chamber” and seek the Centre’s intervention.
Kejriwal appealed to people to minimise the use of private vehicles in view of the situation and switch to public transportation facilities.
The extent of pollution surpassed even the post-Diwali levels, while smog brought down visibility to around 200 metres across the city. Monitoring agencies recorded ‘severe’ quality air and advised people to avoid going outdoors.
Kejriwal told a press conference that the smog was mainly a product of raging farm fires in neighbouring Punjab and Haryana. Later, he raised the issue with Union Environment Minister Anil Dave in a meeting at the latter’s residence.
While the 24-hour average of respirable pollutants PM 2.5 and PM 10 was 355 and 482 micrograms per cubic metre respectively, real-time figures were alarmingly high.
Anand Vihar, for instance, recorded PM 10 level at 1,711 micrograms per cubic metre at 2 PM — around 17 times above the safe limit.
The safe limits of these ultrafine particles are 60 and 100 respectively.
Even the level of gaseous pollutants like NO2 violated the prescribed standards for human inhalation as per real-time readings.
Lt Governor Najeeb Jung has also called for a high-level meeting on Monday to take stock of the immediate, short-term and long term measures, in which he invited Kejriwal, health minister Satyendar Jain, environment minister Imran Hussain, the Delhi Chief Secretary, and representatives of Police and the civic bodies.
Kejriwal said vehicle restriction measures like ‘odd-even’ scheme will not be able to bring down the smog as initial studies suggest that the “large-scale” influx of pollutant-laden smoke from Punjab and Haryana has aggravated the situation.
He said the Delhi government has very few methods at its disposal and the Centre needs to intervene.
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