State govt to monitor air pollution daily

CHANDIGARH: Residents of the state will soon get real time air quality data on air pollution as the continuous ambient air quality monitoring stations (CAAQMS) are being commissioned at Golden Temple in Amritsar, Ludhiana and Mandi Gobindgarh, which are believed to be highly polluted.

Nitin Jain

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 22

Residents of the state will soon get real time air quality data on air pollution as the continuous ambient air quality monitoring stations (CAAQMS) are being commissioned at Golden Temple in Amritsar, Ludhiana and Mandi Gobindgarh, which are believed to be highly polluted.

Costing Rs 3.26 crore, these stations will be in place till the end of next month. The main objective behind monitoring the ambient air quality is to draw an action plan for pollution abatement in these cities where these stations are coming up.

This comes hot on the heels of the Supreme Court taking cognisance of air pollution in Delhi and Chief Justice of India HL Dattu making an unusual admission that his grandson “looks like a ninja” because of the mask he’s forced to wear. Moreover, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) has recently imposed fines ranging between Rs 2,500 and Rs 15,000 on farmers to prevent them from burning paddy fields in Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. The NGT, in its order on November 4, asked the five states to notify it about the steps taken to check this harmful practice.

Principal Secretary, Science, Technology and Environment, Dr G Vajralingam, said the CAAQMS at Mandi Gobindgarh and Ludhiana were to be installed under the Critically Polluted Areas Scheme. He further said at Darbar Sahib in Amritsar, the scheme was covered under the One Million Plus Population Scheme of Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), which is the funding agency. The project is being funded equally by the Punjab Pollution Control Board and the CPCB.

Through these stations, the prescribed pollutants notified by the Union Government in 2009, including sulphur dioxide, oxides of nitrogen, carbon monoxide, ozone, benzo(a)pyrene, benzene, arsenic, nickel (metals), ammonia, PM2.5, PM10 and lead will be monitored.

“All analysers will work round the clock and real time data will be put into the public domain regularly and continuously and will also be displayed at prominent public places near each station as well as on the website of the Punjab Pollution Control Board and CPCB,” said Dr Vajralingam.