Delhi: Centre’s pollution monitoring method flawed, claims CSE

The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) on Wednesday claimed that the ministry of earth sciences had failed to take into account composite air pollution data for Delhi, while claiming that pollution caused by particulate matter of 2.5 microns in size in the Capital hardly touched 350 micrograms this winter.

Updated on: Feb 6, 2014, 09:38:17 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) on Wednesday claimed that the ministry of earth sciences had failed to take into account composite air pollution data for Delhi, while claiming that pollution caused by particulate matter of 2.5 microns in size in the Capital hardly touched 350 micrograms this winter.

The ministry’s System of Air Quality Weather Forecasting and Research (SAFAR) had said in a statement that most of the time during January, PM 2.5 level in Delhi ranged between 100 and 300 micrograms. It said the level seen in Beijing — 500 to 670 micrograms — is rarely seen in Delhi.

The CSE reviewed daily average PM 2.5 pollution level for this winter for three non-SAFAR stations —R K Puram, Mandir Marg and Punjabi Bagh -- and found that on 17 days (14% of the days monitored), the level crossed the 350-microgram mark. Only one day in the last four months would qualify as excellent, four as good and 10 as slightly polluted, the CSE said.

On as many as 41 days (33% of the days monitored), the pollution level was five times of the national ambient air standard for PM 2.5 — 60 micrograms in a cubic meter of air. In Punjabi Bagh, the PM 2.5 levels crossed 600 on January 5 and was about 560 on December 7 and 8, the CSE said.

SAFAR recorded lower pollution levels than the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC), whose air quality data was reviewed by CSE, because its air pollution monitoring stations are at the venue of the Commonwealth Games 2010, some distance away from heavy traffic areas, the CSE said.

On the other hand, the DPCC’s monitoring stations are closer to traf fic- prone areas, depicting a more realistic pollution scenario.

“The SAFAR website does not put real time PM 2.5 pollution data for people to know the concentration. They (SAFAR) have opted for air quality index which is a calculation and not the real data,” said CSE’s Anumita Roy Choudhury.

The CSE’s claim has further deepened the debate over which city — Beijing or Delhi -- has higher PM 2.5 pollution levels.

Hindustan Times got an independent evaluation of the PM 2.5 pollution levels done by Douw Steyn, a professor of atmospheric science at the University of British Columbia in Canada.

Steyn analysis showed that Delhi has more frequent occurrences of moderately polluted conditions. But when the cities are badly polluted, Beijing has more severe conditions than Delhi. It meant that a bad Beijing day is worse than a bad Delhi day, but an ordinary Delhi day is worse than an ordinary Beijing day.

Steyn also said there were limitations to the comparison as data from most polluted parts of the two cities may not be available.

“The present question (which is the worst), simply demands that one make the comparison using data from the most polluted monitoring station in both cities. Of course, this is weakened by the possibility that pollutant monitoring stations in either cities are not at the most polluted location. This difficulty is hard to avoid,” he told HT in an email response.

The CSE said Beijing had made a lot of progress in combating pollution, resulting in particulate matter levels falling in the city. On the other hand, Delhi has not taken adequate measures and as a result, PM pollution levels were on the rise.

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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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