Baddi’s AQI is ‘very poor’ for third consecutive day

Tribune News Service

Solan, January 18

The industrial town of Baddi continued to attain the top slot nationally for the third consecutive day today with the Air Quality Index (AQI) touching 358.

Though a slight decline was witnessed from an AQI of 376 registered yesterday and 416 registered on Sunday, the air quality remained very poor. The presence of Particulate Matter (PM) 2.5 was identified as the prominent pollutant.

The lone air quality monitoring station situated at the State Pollution Control Board building was the only real time air monitoring station located in this industrial belt.

In the neighbouring areas like Chandigarh the AQI was rated very poor at 315 while in Panchkula it was at a moderate level of 140.

According to the bulletin released by the Central Pollution Control Board today, the AQI in Delhi was 318 today in 39 of its 40 air monitoring stations while in Noida it settled at 204 in all its four monitoring stations. These cities occupied the two top positions on January 14 after Lohri.

“A district-level surveillance task force headed by the Deputy Commissioner was constituted on the directions of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) in the recent past. It is supposed to monitor air pollution in Baddi as it is among the non-attainment cities where air pollution does not confirm to the norms. To address the issue of air pollution collectively, the task force is yet to coordinate with various other departments,” said an official of the State Pollution Control Board.

The task force is supposed to meet on a monthly basis to monitor the progress of the action plan. While Delhi and Noida have managed to bring down the AQI level in the last four days, there was little adherence to the action plan constituted for the same in Baddi.

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