Faridabad suffocates in poor air

Bijendra Ahlawat

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Faridabad, May 28

The air quality in the city has hit one of the lowest ebb of the season, with the air quality index (AQI) entering the ‘very poor’ category in certain areas. This has been one of the poorest in the NCR and the entire country.

Need to curb garbage burning

• The AQI in Faridabad has been hanging between ‘poor’ and ‘very poor’ categories for two weeks.
• It is being attributed to the burning of civic and industrial waste in the open and dust in the atmosphere.
• Besides, the administration is accused of disposing hundreds of tonnes of civic waste in open spaces and in the jungles of the Aravallis, on an almost daily basis.

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Current weather conditions, including winds from the North West & heatwave, have affected the air quality. This could continue till precipitation occurs. — Sandeep Singh, Regional Officer, HSPCB

After AQI crossed the 300-mark on Monday, the average PM-2.5 level (particulate matter of 2.5 micrograms in one cubic metres) was recorded at 288 points this morning.

Meanwhile, the AQI monitoring stations at NIT zone and Sector 11 recorded AQI at 366 and 330, respectively, at 9 am, according to the details available with the official app of the CPCB.

The average AQI of the city was the second highest in the NCR on Tuesday morning after Greater Noida, which recorded 300 points on the AQI meter.

The air quality index in Delhi, Noida and Ghaziabad was between 216 and 246 in the ‘poor’ category. The AQI in Gurugram was reported to be at 156 points today.

Later in the evening, the Delhi, Faridabad, Gurugram, Ghaziabad, Greater Noida and Noida recorded an AQI at 244, 288, 159, 222, 315 and 265, respectively.

The AQI in Faridabad has been hanging between ‘poor’ and ‘very poor’ categories in the past two weeks. It is being attributed to the burning of civic and industrial waste in the open and dust in the atmosphere.

“The burning of hundreds of quintals of waste daily in and around Saroorpur industrial area in the NIT has perhaps been one of the major reasons behind the poor air quality. Even civic waste is often disposed of in an unsafe manner due to poor solid waste disposal infrastructure in the city,” says Narender Sirohi, a Faridabad-based social activist.

An activist associated with NGO named ‘Save Aravali’, Jitender Bhadana, charged the civic administration of disposing hundreds of tonnes of civic waste in open spaces and in the jungles of the Aravallis, on an almost daily basis. He said the problem had not been resolved despite lodging several complaints with the authorities and the agencies concerned.

Meanwhile, the shortage of staff in the Haryana State Pollution Control Board (HSPCB) has also impacted the monitoring and implementation of sanitation norms in the city.

“The current weather conditions, including winds from the North West direction and heatwave, have affected the air quality. This could continue till precipitation occurs,” says Sandeep Singh, Regional Officer, HSPCB.