As union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is likely to move the Health Security and National Security Cess Bill, 2025 for consideration and passing in the Lok Sabha on Thursday, the Opposition is set to stage a protest against air pollution in Delhi–NCR at 10:30 am at Makar Dwar on the fourth day of the Winter Session of Parliament.
Congress MP Vijaykumar alias Vijay Vasanth has given an Adjournment Motion Notice in the Lok Sabha regarding the severe air pollution in Delhi–NCR and vast parts of North India.
Vijaykumar urged the Government to declare Delhi’s air crisis a national public health emergency, restore all air-quality monitoring stations, take strict action against polluters, and launch a science-based national clean air plan.
He said, “Delhi has turned into an open air gas chamber, with crores breathing toxic air that is harming every organ of the body and causing long term illness, even in children and young adults.”
MP criticised the Government for failing to monitor the crisis, noting that during Diwali only 9 of Delhi’s 37 air quality monitoring stations were working, leaving agencies without real time data when pollution was at its worst. He called this a serious lapse that put citizens’ lives at risk.
MP urged the Government to declare Delhi’s air crisis a national public health emergency restore all monitoring stations, enforce action on polluters, and launch a science based national clean air plan. He warned that every delay puts people in danger and said Parliament must act immediately.
Giving further momentum to the issue, Congress MP Manish Tewari has also submitted an Adjournment Motion Notice in the Lok Sabha “to discuss the life-and-death emergency without further delay” amid rising air pollution across Delhi–NCR and the Indo-Gangetic Plain.
In his letter, Tewari wrote: “I move that this House do suspend Question Hour, Zero Hour, and all other listed business of the day to take up an urgent matter of grave public importance—the catastrophic air pollution crisis that has transformed Delhi-NCR and the entire Indo-Gangetic Plain into lethal gas chambers and is triggering a national public health emergency of unprecedented scale.”
According to the List of Business, MPs Jugal Kishore and Sanjay Jaiswal will present the Seventh Report of the Committee on Estimates (2025–26) on the subject “Implementation of Pradhan Mantri Kisan Urja Suraksha Evam Utthaan Mahabhiyan (PM-KUSUM) and PM Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana” pertaining to the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy in the Lok Sabha.
Kanimozhi Karunanidhi and Ashok Kumar Rawat will present reports of the Standing Committee on Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, while Basavraj Bommai and G.M. Harish Balayogi will present reports related to Labour, Textiles, and Skill Development.
Meanwhile, the union government on Wednesday revoked its direction to phone manufacturers to mandatorily pre-install state-run Sanchar Saathi cybersecurity app on all mobile phones amid widespread criticism from the Opposition and civil rights activists against the directive.
