Delhi Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Adesh Gupta on Saturday said that the Delhi Government has spent only 1.6 per cent of Rs 883 crore collected from the people in the name of green cess to control pollution which has now reached an alarming level.

Addressing the media, he charged the Kejriwal government with having completely failed in controlling the increasing pollution level and said the apathy of the government has resulted into Delhi becoming “a capital of dust”.

“The chief minister is only interested in political expansion of his party that has led to the worsening overall situation in the city where most of the people are compelled to live in miserable conditions,” he added.

Citing reports by some medical experts, he said corona pandemic would not have taken a monstrous turn in Delhi had air pollution been under control. “If people are suffering from lung cancer, heart disease, asthma, TB, it is Kejriwal who is responsible for all this,” he said.

Extensively quoting from an NGO’s Greenpeace Southeast Asia report, he said 54,000 people died of pollution-related diseases in the capital last year alone or a daily average of 148 deaths and it caused a monetary loss of Delhi to the tune of Rs 58,000 crore.

Talking about the Green budget of the Kejriwal government, Gupta said even on stubble burning, he made a lot of hue and cry, but figures show last year the government spent only Rs 40,000 in buying bio decomposer units while Rs 24 lakh was spent on their distribution and another whopping Rs 9 crore on its publicity.