The citizens of Delhi are facing every day challenges so as to how to cope with the ever-changing climatic conditions and the devastating effects of environmental pollution.

The AQI of Delhi has been going through the roof, our river Yamuna is dying, plastic waste is clogging our landfills and garbage dumps and; our green cover is reducing, etc.

High pollution levels can cause immediate health problems including:
Aggravated cardiovascular and respiratory illness Added stress to heart and lungs, which must work harder to supply the body with oxygen damaged cells in the respiratory system, cancer and other critical diseases.

Therefore, to ensure that the next government of Delhi takes steps to reduce and reverse the effects of environmental pollution the various groups of students of Delhi belonging to different colleges and schools formulated A ‘Charter of demand' which contained the primary steps which we expect the Delhi government to take.

On 17th Jan, 2020 a delegation of students containing representatives of all the students groups submitted the Charter of demand to the Manifesto Committee of Aam Aadmi Party and had an extended and positive discussion on these issues.

The students delegation comprised of Aditya Dubey, Aman Banka, Kartik Sharma, Garvit Bhutani, Amrendra Singh and Nikhil. Our Charter of demands basically comprised of demands like:-

1. Ban on Single Use Plastic
2. Registration of 50% Electronic Vehicle by 2025
3. Reviving the Yamuna
4. removal and valorisation of Ghazipur dump site
5. Ward level segregation
6. Public Transport for 80% population
7. City Traffic Planning
8. Making plantation of trees mandatory for all students in Delhi by allotting marks for it.

We submitted our Charter of demand to the members of the Manifesto committee namely Jasmine Shah, Anurag and others of Aam Aadmi party. They responded positively and accepted our demands and assured us that the same will be added in their manifesto.

We are hopeful that if the Aam Aadmi party includes these demands in its manifesto and fulfills them then it will really go a long way to improve the environmental condition and air quality of Delhi.

(Aman Banka is a 2nd year Law student from Lloyd Law College, Greater Noida and has been actively involved in the various environmental campaigns, including the Aarey Forest Campaign. He has also filed the case against the bottling company in NGT. His twitter)

(The views expressed in the article are the author’s own. Let Me Breathe neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)