Amritsar MC drops plan to install air purifier

Tribune News Service

Charanjit Singh Teja

Amritsar, October 27

The Municipal Corporation dropped the idea of installation of air purifiers in the city, announced two years back. The MC officials claimed that the city doesn’t require air purifier to improve the air quality as PM 2.5 levels were within prescribed limits.

“Instead of PM 2.5, the city requires to address PM 10 levels so we have dropped the idea of air purifier for time and adopted other ways to curb the dust in air. The unpaved roads would be carpeted, the pavements would be cored with the interlocking tiles and road sprinkle and sweeping machined would be bought to reduce the dust from air,” said Deepinder Singh Sandhu, Superintending Engineer, Civil Wing, MC.

The city was listed in the non-attainment cities under the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP), which means the holy city does not meet the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS). Under the NCAP, three cities, including Amritsar, Jalandhar and Ludhiana, were identified in Punjab based on the air quality data from 2014 to 2018. The Municipal Corporation received Rs 19 crore to improve the air quality in the city under the NCAP.

As per the mandate of the National Green Tribunal (NGT), the city-specific action plans have been prepared which includes maintaining of pothole-free roads, procurement of water sprinkling, mechanical sweeping machines, creation of green buffers along roadside, making parks and open areas green, installation of water fountains at major chowks, paved roads, infrastructure for parking, CNG-based crematorium and installation of gobar gas plant at gaushalas.

As per the government programme, the MC has to take measures for strengthening the monitoring network, reducing vehicular/industrial emissions and increasing public awareness to improve the air quality.

“The projects under NCAP are being implemented. Some projects are on tendering level. We are regularly requesting to the traffic police to not allow any uncovered sand and clay loaded tractor trolley on city roads”, said Sandhu.

In September 2020, the Central Government had launched the NCAP as a long-term, time-bound, national-level strategy to tackle the air pollution problem in a comprehensive manner with targets to achieve 20 per cent to 30 per cent reduction in particulate matter concentrations by 2024 keeping 2017 as the base year for the comparison of concentration.

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