Anti-smog tower in Delhi’s CP reduced pollution by 80%: Env min Gopal Rai

Gopal Rai said that according to the sensors installed around the smog tower, around 8am on Friday, the PM 2.5 (particulate matter of diameter less than 2.5 micrometres) level of 151µg/m3 (microgram per metre cube) fell to 38µg/m3

The Delhi government’s first smog tower installed at Connaught Place has reduced air pollution in the vicinity by up to 80%, environment minister Gopal Rai claimed on Friday.

Delhi environment minister Gopal Rai visits the anti-smog tower at Baba Kharak Singh Marg, Connaught Palace, in New Delhi, on Friday. (Sanjeev Verma/HT PHOTO)

While inspecting the smog tower installed at Baba Kharak Singh Marg in CP on Friday, Rai said the preliminary reports of the filtered air quality shows that the smog tower was cleaning up to 80% of the polluted air in the area around it.

“We have constituted a 16-member committee today (Friday) to closely monitor the smog tower. The committee will submit three reports to the Delhi government, at an interval of three months each, which will give a clearer assessment of the performance of the smog tower. On the basis of the report, the government will decide whether to install smog towers at other places,” said Rai.

“The committee will have five members from the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC). Apart from this, five members from IIT-Bombay, three from NBCC (India), and three from Tata Project Limited will join the panel,” he said.

Rai said that according to the sensors installed around the smog tower, around 8am on Friday, the PM 2.5 (particulate matter of diameter less than 2.5 micrometres) level of 151µg/m3 (microgram per metre cube) fell to 38µg/m3. The level of PM 10 (particulate matter with diameter less than 10 micrometres) of 166µg/m3 was also brought down to 41ug/m3 after purification, he claimed.

Experts have, however, expressed apprehension about effectiveness of smog towers.

“The measurements reported to substantiate the effectiveness of the smog tower seem to be capturing the difference between the quality at the inlet and outlet. However, to truly determine if the device has any impact on a substantive area in the surrounding, measurements must be made at various distances from the device in different directions to assess how far its impact zone is. This is anyway slated to happen over the coming months. What would be useful would be to mount measuring devices and display monitors to create public evidence,” said Karthik Ganesan, Fellow and Research Director, Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW).

Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal inaugurated the smog tower, which was set up on the directions of the Supreme Court, on August 23. The government had ordered a one-month trial to assess if the tower is beneficial.

The government said that about 10,000 filters and 40 fans are installed in the smog tower, which is designed to clean polluted air in a one kilometre radius, at a rate of about 1,000 cubic metres per second.