NGT fumes as Lankan cricketers wear masks at Kotla, asks `why was the match held`

The Sri Lankan cricket team had complained of poor air quality in Delhi.

New Delhi: The National Green Tribunal on Monday slammed the Delhi government for not filing a comprehensive action plan on ways to deal with severe air pollution in the city.

It also came down heavily on authorities for holding the India-Sri Lanka cricket match despite bad air quality.

A bench headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar took exception over the failure of the AAP government to file the report despite its specific order.

During the hearing, the Delhi government said it needed more time to file the action plan as the chief secretary and environment secretary have been recently changed.

The tribunal, however, directed the government to file the report within the next 48 hours.

"Where is your action plan? Why have you not submitted it? What can we do if you keep on changing everybody? It's not our problem if people don't want to stick to you. You keep on doing meetings but tell us a single action or step you have taken in the last four days to combat air pollution," the bench said, PTI reported.

Irked by authorities for conducting the third Test between Sri Lanka and India, the green panel said, "Every newspaper has been carrying headline that the air pollution was going to be higher this week. Still you took no action. Even the players were playing match wearing masks. You should have not held the match if the air quality was so bad. Are people of Delhi supposed to bear this?"

The tribunal had on November 28 asked the AAP government and four neighbouring states- Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan to submit an action plan on tackling pollution.

Earlier, on Sunday, environmental NGO Greenpeace too had said it that was "sad" that India faced "international shame" for hosting games in polluted areas such as Delhi, after Sri Lankan cricket team held up play in the third Test, complaining of poor air quality.

Noting that the bigger hindrance to clean up the air in India is lack of "political will", the green body had said that the solution to this was not in shifting or cancelling matches but in cleaning up the air with "systematic, coordinated and comprehensive" actions.

In an unprecedented turn of events, the embattled Sri Lankan cricket team had held up the play during the third Test against India, complaining of poor air quality that forced the hosts to declare their innings.

The first-ever incident of this kind in the sport's 140- year-old history saw an international team resort to anti-pollution masks while fielding and then refuse to continue, stopping play for 26 minutes over three interruptions.

(With PTI inputs)