The Delhi Government has said it is planning to implement a scheme which will allow felling of a maximum of 20 per cent of trees required for a development project while the remaining 80 per cent would have to be transplanted through modern technology.

 Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, while presenting the budget in Delhi Assembly on Tuesday said, the government is planning this scheme under which 80 per cent of the remaining trees will have to be mandatorily transplanted.

“The government has already implemented a scheme to plant 10 trees for cutting one tree, but now the Government is planning to bring an important plan under which, removal of maximum 20 per cent of the total trees required for implementation of the project will be allowed,” he said.

Noting that this is a “tough but very important step”, Sisodia said Delhi is the first state in the country where this stringent rule will be implemented.  Sisodia presented  Rs60,000 crore budget of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) for 2019-20 laying emphasis on the education, health and transport sectors and said it is “two times more” than the first budget presented by it in 2014-15.

“Environment pollution today is the concern of every Delhiites. According to the data compiled by DPCC (Delhi Pollution Control Committee), concentration of particulate matters in Delhi’s air has declined by 20 per cent,” he said.

Data shows that the average PM10 (fine particulate matters in the air with a diameter of less than 10 micrometers) volume in the air in 2011 was 277, which increased to 368 in 2012, he said.

“Since then, it has been continuously rising, and in 2018 it has again reduced to 277. Similarly, the quantity of PM 2.5 (fine particulate matters in the air with a diameter of less than 2.5 micrometers) was 136 in 2011 which became 164 in 2012.

“It registered to 128 in 2018. Another polluting element NO2, which was 71 in 2011, increased to 90 in the next years, but in 2018, as a result of various efforts of the Government, it came down to 50,” he said.