Ghaziabad civic body begins ‘road washing’ to control dust pollution

In order to control dust on the city roads, the Ghaziabad municipal-corporation on October 2 began washing the roads. Twelve vehicles with treated water from sewage

In order to control dust on the city roads, the Ghaziabad municipal-corporation on October 2 began washing the roads. Twelve vehicles with treated water from sewage treatment plants (STPs) and staff to spray it into every nook and corner will roam the city roads to keep dust from spreading as vehicles pass by.

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Officials said the drive will cover major connecting roads in the city.

The roads that will be covered in the first week include UP-Gate to Sahibabad, Budh Chowk to Vaishali sector-6, Chaudhary Morh to Meerut Road, Meerut Crossing to Duhai, Hindon airbase to Hindon river and Bhopra to Hindon airbase, among others.

“The weekly schedule for different roads will be prepared in advance. The roads which we have included are the major roads which connect to highways, major district roads and other major road stretches passing through the city. The 12 vehicles which have been roped in for the purpose will bring treated water from STPs. This will save a lot of fresh groundwater,” said MS Tanwar, municipal commissioner.

Ahead of winter, when Ghaziabad air is most polluted, road dust is one of the major contributors to coarse particulate matter, PM10, that are bigger than 10 microns. During his recent visits and review meetings, Environment (Pollution and Control) Authority chairperson Bhure Lal had directed officials to keep an eye on this critical pollutant.

“Our road washing initiative will continue throughout the year. This will also give a clean look to the city. On October 2, we also initiated the concept of ‘dust bags’ where 10000 bags have been provided to five zones in the municipal-corporation area and the cleaning staff will collect dust from internal residential roads. This way, we plan to collect about 50 tonnes of daily dust from roads,” Tanwar, added.

The officials said that apart from washing of roads and collection of dust through ‘dust bags,’ the other means of mechanised road sweeping and sprinkling of water will continue as usual.

“We have also planned that washing of roads which have initiated during early hours should be taken up at night timings when the traffic flow is reduced considerably. We are chalking this out and the road washing activity will also be initiated during night timings,” Tanwar, added.

Environmentalists said that the corporation must ensure daily monitoring.

“It has been our experience that once the corporation starts any initiative it generally remains unmonitored and then slowly comes to a halt. Road dust is one of the major contributors to the air pollution in the city. Once the initiatives start producing results, the corporation should also focus on other areas like monitoring of incidents of garbage bruning which also pose serious issues for the air quality,” said Akash Vashishtha, a city based environmentalist.