Beijing announced on Saturday its plan to spend 18.2 billion yuan ($2.6 billion) to assist in the city's fight against the deadly smog, one of the worst recorded globally.  

The Business Standard quoted acting mayor Cai Qi while speaking during the Beijing Municipal People's Congress saying that Beijing has plans to shut down or reform 2,570 factories.

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"This year, to improve air quality in Beijing, we will replace coal with clean energy for 700 villagers and phase out 300,000 high polluting old vehicles," Cai said. He further explained that new regulations will be put in place to ensure that there is strict adherence to the emission standards and environmental law enforcement.

Cai also spoke on the establishment of the environmental police unit, which was developed early this year to improve supervision and accountability in the 16 smog-hit regions.

"The environment police will arrest and detain suspects for environmental violations," he said.

Meanwhile, Fang Li, the head of the environmental Protection Bureau of Beijing, also said that there would be a joint effort between the police unit and the environmental authorities to crack down environment violators.

The congress meeting also highlighted that more initiatives are expected to be done in 2017 to curb air pollution in the region. 

Beijing, which is home to 22 million citizens, has been struggling with the air pollution menace for years strongly because of the massive industrialization in the region.

On Sunday, the city had issued a yellow alert status, the third worst level in the four-tier alert system, for the thick smog that is expected to engulf the region until Tuesday night.

Tagschina, Beijing, Environmental Police, Environment pollution