Baghpat, Jind among new pollution hot spots in north India, shows data

Since October 1, when the pollution levels in the northern plain started to deteriorate, several northern cities had higher pollution levels than Delhi. Tracking air pollution this winter clearly shows that several cities in Haryana, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh have emerged as the new hot spots as compared to places such as Gwalior and Jhansi, which used to have high particulate pollution.

Updated on: Nov 14, 2019, 05:46:49 IST

Hindustan Times, New Delhi | By Chetan Chauhan

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This winter the air pollution levels in several other northern cities was higher than the national capital, the Central Pollution Control Board air quality index (AQI) data shows, implying that air quality is deteriorating in these smaller towns at a faster rate.

A dense smog cover over Ghaziabad. The Uttar Pradesh city remained the most polluted in the country for three consecutive days after Diwali. (Sakib Ali / HT Photo)

Since October 1, when the pollution levels in the northern plain started to deteriorate, several northern cities had higher pollution levels than Delhi. Tracking air pollution this winter clearly shows that several cities in Haryana, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh have emerged as the new hot spots as compared to places such as Gwalior and Jhansi, which used to have high particulate pollution.

Baghpat in Uttar Pradesh had highest AQI level of 500 on November 4 in the country, a day after Rohtak in Haryana topped the CPCB’s AQI charts of 102 cities across India. On November 6, Jind in Haryana was most polluted place in the country. On November 11 and 12, Panipat, another town in southern Haryana had highest pollution levels in the country,

Between October 1 and November 11, Panipat had topped the chart five times, Jind and Hisar four times each, Rohtak twice and Baghpat once. Ghaziabad, neighbouring Delhi in Uttar Pradesh, had been the most polluted place 11 times, Noida, twice and Lucknow once. The coal city of Talechar in Odisha also topped the CPCB AQI chart twice because of base pollution load and particulate matter flowing from the north India, the data analysis showed.

In this period, Delhi’s AQI level was highest only thrice including November 27, the Diwali night, according to the CPCB data. To be sure, Delhi has 38 air pollution monitoring stations unlike other towns which have maximum of five monitoring stations. As AQI is an average of pollution levels at all stations, the Delhi’s AQI may not reflect the highest pollution level at a particular place in the city.

“It is not fair that air pollution focus is just on Delhi,” said Chandra Bhushan former deputy director general of Centre for Science and Environment. “The data clearly shows that air pollution is pan north Indian plains problem and in several places pollution levels are higher than in Delhi.”

There are two primary reasons for spike in air pollution in the northern plains -- stubble burning, which picked up from October 15 and was maximum on November 4, and the increase in local pollution load. The north-westerly winds carry the stubble smoke from paddy fields of Punjab and Haryana towards Delhi and the national capital region and its contribution to pollution load had been at a maximum of 25% this winter, according to analysis by System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research (Safar), a wing of ministry of earth sciences.

Experts say the second reason is that there are virtually no action plans to deal with increasing pollution load in these smaller towns and cities, which have not come under the Supreme Court radar.

For instance, Panipat, which has seen 20% increase in population between 2001 and 2011, has seen several new small industries coming up and vehicle registrations rising almost two-fold in the past five years, according to Haryana statistical report of 2018. The report shows similar increase in population and vehicles in Karnal, Rohtak and Jind.

“A large number of industries which closed in Delhi have shifted close to GT Karnal Road between Panipat and Sonipat making it a new pollution hot-spot,” said an official of Haryana pollution control board, who was not willing to be named. He added that a similar trend is also visible in and around Rohtak, where pollution levels have almost doubled in the past three years. And same is the case with Baghpat in Uttar Pradesh, which is emerging as a new residential and industrial belt next to Delhi.

Haryana pollution control board member secretary, S Narayanan, said they have prepared pollution plans for these cities, which was being implemented by the district authorities. “The CPCB is monitoring the situation and issuing directions to mitigate air pollution which is being followed,” he said.

The Uttar Pradesh pollution control board also has air pollution mitigation plan, which is also monitored by the CPCB. “The problem is that these plans are based on assumptions and not real data. We need to know real sources of air pollution in these towns and then prepare area specific action plans,” Bhushan said.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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