Delhi pollution: Smog tower to be inaugurated at Anand Vihar today

Smog towers are structures designed to work as large-scale air purifiers. They are fitted with multiple layers of air filters and fans at the base to suck the air and work on the downdraft air-flow model.

Delhi will get another smog tower on Tuesday near the Anand Vihar metro station. The area is one of the pollution hotspots in the national capital and the tower will help bring the levels of pollutants down.

The smog tower at Anand Vihar which will be inaugurated today. (ANI Photo)

Union ministers Bhupendra Yadav and Ashwani Choubey are expected to participate in the inauguration function and dedicate the structure to the public under the 'National Clean Air Program'.

The tower, built by Tata Company, has a capacity of 1,000 cubic metres per second.

On August 23, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal inaugurated a similar structure in Connaught Place in central Delhi. The smog tower was inaugurated at Baba Kharak Singh Marg months before the pollution level spikes in the national capital due to burning of crop waste by farmers.

What is a smog tower?

Smog towers are structures designed to work as large-scale air purifiers. They are fitted with multiple layers of air filters and fans at the base to suck the air.

After the polluted air enters the smog tower, it is purified by the multiple layers before being re-circulated into the atmosphere. This is called the downdraft air-flow model.

The smog tower at Anand Vihar

It is also built with similar technology used to construct the Connaught Place tower. Both the towers have been built by Tata Projects Limited (TPL), with technical assistance from IIT Bombay and in collaboration with IIT Delhi.

Following high pollution levels in the national capital, the Supreme Court had in November 2019 asked the Centre and the Delhi government to come up with a road map on installing smog towers in the national capital region (NCR) to combat air pollution.

Pollution in Delhi

Delhi was the most polluted capital city in the world in 2020 for the third consecutive year, according to a report by a Swiss group (released in March this year) that ranked cities based on their air quality measured in terms of the levels of ultrafine particulate matter (PM 2.5) that can enter the organs and cause lasting damage.