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Toxic carbon monoxide above safe limit in Noida
Noida: Low wind speed, coupled with open burning of garbage, has caused the air quality of Noida and adjoining areas to worsen over the past 24 hours, especially
Noida: Low wind speed, coupled with open burning of garbage, has caused the air quality of Noida and adjoining areas to worsen over the past 24 hours, especially in Greater Noida.
The air quality of Noida remained severe for the third continuous day with no scope of improvement till November 3, weather analysts said.
However, it was Greater Noida where the air quality index on Thursday, on a scale of 0 to 500, was 473 against 438 a day earlier( both in the severe category), making it the second most polluted region in Delhi-NCR and the third most polluted region in the country behind Ghaziabad (482) and Hapur (477).
While meteorological factors are cited as the primary reasons of such a steep rise in pollution in Greater Noida, residents believe that local emissions from unabated open burning of garbage and dust generation are also responsible for the deteriorating air quality.
“There have been a number of incidents of fire in the region, including the one at Delta-2 green belt, where a huge pile of garbage was set on fire late Wednesday — it went on burning for a long time. It was only after fire tenders were called in that the fire was doused. We had been complaining about garbage burning to the administration. Although officials inspected the site, we are still waiting for a solution,” Harinder Bhati, resident of Beta-2, Greater Noida, said.
According to officials of the Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board (UPPCB) in Greater Noida, they are keeping an eye on such incidents though a shortage of manpower is greatly hampering their efforts.
Archana Dwivedi, regional officer, UPPCB, Greater Noida, said, “We have a staff of three, including myself. There is one assistant engineer and one junior engineer. The staff carry out inspections all day long and then file a report by evening. Even if three officials remain in the field all day, it’s not possible to cover such a huge area as Greater Noida. There is a need for at least three or four more junior engineers and two or three assistant engineers.”
The AQI of Noida also saw a slight deterioration from 450 on Wednesday to 452 on Thursday, both in the ‘severe’ category. However, while Noida remains the third most polluted region in NCR, the levels of carbon monoxide (CO) increased in all parts of Noida, making it a serious health hazard.
As per records of the pollution monitoring agencies , the CO levels were found highest across the four monitored regions of Noida and the same has increased over the past 24 hours with maximum range oscillating between 161 and 181 mg/m3 on Thursday, against 121 and 150 mg/m3 a day before.
The safe limit of CO , a toxic gas which causes nausea, headache and other health issues even on short-term exposure, is 2mg/m3 for an eight-hour average and 4mg/m3 at a four-hour average.
According to the Met department, the current surface wind is north-westerly and is coming from Punjab and Haryana at a speed of about 6kmph, bringing along the smoke from stubble burning in those states. The number of stubble burning incidents in Punjab and Haryana has increased from 1,057 cases to 2,396 cases over the past 24 hours.
