Arvind Kejriwal reiterates focus on electric buses, odd-even

New Delhi: Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Friday said his government is focusing on electric mobility to tackle air pollution in Delhi.

While addressing the C-40 Climate Change Summit joint conference in Copenhagen along with mayors of various world cities through video conferencing, Kejriwal said he will form a special task force to monitor implementation of a declaration signed during the summit at Copenhagen in Denmark.

The Chief Minister was scheduled to visit Copenhagen to take part in the C-40 Climate Change Summit but was denied permission by External Affairs ministry, saying it was a "mayor-level" summit, but Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit was part of the summit in 2007 and it was her most expensive foreign trip ever, according to information accessed through the Right to Information (RTI) Act.

Dikshit went to New York in 2007 between May 14 and 17, and the trip cost Rs 7,49,995, the RTI sought by IANS said. In her three terms as Chief Minister, Dikshit went on 25 foreign trips in different countries. While Kejriwal till December 2018 has only three foreign trips.

While Kejriwal''s two trips -- to Rome in Italy (2016) and Seoul in South Korea (2018), were official, one was personal and its expenditure was borne by the Chief Minister personally.

His trip to Rome cost over Rs 6.5 lakh and that to Seoul was about Rs 3.5 lakh The C-40 Clean Air Cities declaration was signed at the summit. "In coming days, we are going to form a special task force to be chaired by me to monitor implementation of the C-40 declaration," he said.

The chief minister also talked about various efforts taken by his government, including the implementation of the odd-even scheme, to clean air quality in Delhi.