‘Most polluted’ Gurugram has only two air monitors

Adjudged as world’s most polluted city in a report, Gurugram lacks adequate infrastructure to monitor air quality. According to experts, the city suffers severely by not having enough air quality monitors.

Despite figuring among the cities with the worst air quality levels, and pollution, an area of severe concern for residents, Gurugram lacks adequate infrastructure to monitor air quality. According to experts, the city suffers severely by not having enough air quality monitors.

Heavy traffic jam on the Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway, in Gurugram, Tuesday, March 5, 2019. Gurugram is the world’s most polluted city according to report. (PTI)

Dipankar Saha, former head of the Central Pollution Control Board’s (CPCB) air quality lab, said that unlike Delhi, there is a severe shortage of air monitoring stations in the city. “The city is yet to learn from Delhi. It has very few air monitoring stations. How can the government form actionable plans if they do not have an accurate assessment of the situation? They are not able to monitor the gravity of the situation to begin with,” Saha said.

He added that most of the cities that demonstrate poor air quality levels didn’t have adequate air monitoring stations. As of now, the city has two air monitoring stations — one in Vikas Sadan and the other in Gwal Pahari.

While the one in Gwal Pahari hasn’t been working for a long time, the accuracy of the Vikas Sadan station has been questioned by experts.

Experts have also said that one monitor alone cannot provide a detailed picture of pollution levels across the city.

“A city like Gurugram needs to have at least eight air quality monitors spread across different zones,” Sachin Panwar, a city-based air pollution scientist, said.

Panwar also added that the accuracy of the results of the station at Vikas Sadan were questionable. “For multiple days in a month, the station at Vikas Sadan can be found to be non-functional. The data is inaccurate. Plus, it is located in an area which sees a heavy vehicular traffic and may not present an accurate picture,” said Panwar.

He also said that another monitoring station in Manesar was located far off, and that didn’t help much. Namita Gupta, an air quality expert and founder of a city-based air quality monitoring consultancy, said that Manesar, for all practical purposes, was located outside the main city.

“Data from that monitor cannot be representative of other areas in the city,” she said.

She added that the government was not taking concrete steps towards setting up more stations.

“The government has been promising monitors for a long time, but they haven’t been able to set up any. This is problematic, since a lack of representative data also means there is inaction,” Gupta said.

Kuldeep Singh, regional officer (Gurugram), Haryana State Pollution Control Board, said the government was planning to set up more stations in the city. “We have a station in Vikas Sadan and one in Manesar. Additionally, the Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authorities (GMDA) has plans of setting up more of these stations.”

Officials also said that the GMDA has also floated tenders to install a city-wide network of low cost air quality sensors for PM2.5 and PM10 levels, which should be active by next month.