More air quality monitoring stations to be added in NCR, NGT told

New Delhi
The Union ministry of environment, forest and climate change (MoEFCC) has informed the National Green Tribunal (NGT) that it is looking to add more ambient air quality monitoring stations in the National Capital Region (NCR) to make its network denser.
The ministry, in a report to the tribunal submitted on Wednesday, said that both manual and automatic stations will be added to the existing network in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, but no additions are planned for Delhi or in the NCR towns of Rajasthan, deeming the network there adequate at present.
MoEFCC was responding to an NGT order dated September 11, which sought details of measures being taken to control air pollution in NCR by the Delhi Pollution Control Committee, the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) and the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), among others bodies.
At manual stations, high volume samplers are installed which draw in air for a period of time. This sample collected is then analysed in a laboratory, after which data can be made available. Such a process requires time. Automatic stations — their technical term is continuous ambient air quality monitoring stations (CAAQMS) — on the other hand are able to share air quality data for different parameters to a central serval on a real-time basis.
The MoEFCC report, dated October 15, stated that Delhi has seven manual stations and 40 CAAQMS. Meanwhile, two districts and three cities of Rajasthan fall under NCR, and these areas presently have nine manual stations and four CAAQMS.
The report further stated that Haryana’s 14 NCR districts have 22 manual stations and 28 CAAQMS stations, and the eight NCR districts of Uttar Pradesh have 20 manual stations and 18 CAAQMS.
“A total of 20 manual and one CAAQMS will be added in the NCR area of Haryana, while in the NCR cities of UP, 22 manual and 10 CAAQMS are planned to be added,” the ministry said
MoEFCC said the stations will be increased based on CPCB criteria, which states that a minimum of four stations should be available in a city or district with a population up to 500,000; a minimum of six stations should be there if the population is between 500,000 and a million; a minimum of eight stations if the population is between 1 million and 5 million, and areas with a population above 5 million require a minimum of 16 stations.
The ministry said gradual additions are being made to meet this criteria, with portable mobile vans also being utilised whenever possible.
“The air laboratory of the CPCB is having a mobile van (portable station), designed specifically for short term episodal studies related to ambient air quality. The van is equipped with real time analysers to measure parameters like PM 2.5, SO2, NO2, CO, Ozone among others,” said the report.