Pollution control board to identify highly polluted roads in Gurgaon
The state pollution control board has earmarked MG Road, Iffco Chowk and Rajiv Chowk as highly polluted areas in Gurgaon
The pollution watchdog said that it will on Monday identify road stretches that have a high level of air pollution.
The data will be compiled and the information will be shared with the Municipal Corporation Gurugram (MCG), so that the agency can initiate take measures such as sprinkling water to settle the dust on these specific stretches.
The initiative is planned as every year, when the city’s air quality turns ‘poor’ before and after Diwali.
At present, the Haryana State Pollution Control Board (HSPCB) has marked out MG Road, Iffco Chowk and Rajiv Chowk as highly polluted areas .
“A detailed report will be submitted soon and it will cover all sectors of the city. The three stretches were found to be highly polluted because of ongoing construction work. These stretches also have witnessed large scale tree felling in the last few months to facilitate the construction work,” said JB Sharma, regional officer, HSPCB.
The initial study has pointed out that key commercial areas such as Sadar Bazar and Udyog Vihar are also highly polluted.
Also, the construction along the Southern Peripheral Road (SPR) and Northern Peripheral Road (NPR) is contributing to the poor air quality in the city.
Apart from the construction dust, these important stretches have a high level of air pollutants as they get a large number of vehicles every day.
According to the Centre for Science and Environment data, approximately 3.5 lakh vehicles ply on the Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway every day, contributing to the growing level of pollutants in the air.
“The carbon monoxide level, over the last few days, has been recorded more than five times higher than the prescribed limit of 4 mg/m³. This is mainly due to emissions from vehicles that are trapped in the atmosphere as winter is approaching,” said Shakti Singh, environmental engineer, HSPCB.
It was observed that major air pollutants in Gurgaon include carbon monoxide (CO), hydrocarbons (HC), particulate matter (PM), nitrogen oxides (NOx) and sulphur dioxide (SO2).
“Water sprinkling will start once the air pollutants increase. We will follow the environment pollution control and prevention authority’s (EPCA’s) graded response action plan when the Air Quality Index (AQI) falls to “poor”,” Singh said.
Read I Gurgaon’s air marked ‘good’, but data on major pollutants not available for a week
The air quality index is an indicator of the pollution and it keeps tracks of three pollutants — NO2, PM10 and PM2.5. The index indicates air quality as ‘good’ for values between 0-100, moderate for values 101-200 and poor for values between 201-300.
The index for individual pollutants at a monitoring location is calculated as per its 24-hour average concentration value (eight-hour cycle in case of CO and ozone) and health breakpoint concentration range.
All pollutants cannot be monitored at all locations. Overall AQI is calculated only if data of on a minimum of three pollutants is available.
