Ghaziabad most polluted city across country; local pollutants, traffic responsible, say experts

Ghaziabad: The Ghaziabad city on Monday, with an air quality index (AQI) of 365, under “very poor” category, topped the list of the most polluted cities in the country.

Ghaziabad: The Ghaziabad city on Monday, with an air quality index (AQI) of 365, under “very poor” category, topped the list of the most polluted cities in the country. The records of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) indicate that the city, in the last winter season during January, February and March earlier this year, had topped the list 15 times.

Meanwhile, this season, the city has seen “severe” category pollution levels on at least eight occasions since September. According to the forecast by private agency System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research (Safar), the contribution of stubble-burning to the national Capital’s particulate matter (PM) 2.5 levels stood low at 6%. According to environmentalists, if a city tops the list of most polluted cities but levels of pollutants are in the lower ranges, it indicates that the local pollutants come into play.

“When the AQI is “severe”, the burden is on stubble burning. However, if the city is the most polluted in the country despite the contribution of stubble burning being lower, then local pollutants are responsible. There are hardly any effective measures to control road dust, while traffic snarls are rampant everywhere. It is the local pollutants which are affecting the AQI at present and there is hardly any enforcement,” said Akash Vashishtha, a city-based environmentalist.

According to the CPCB’s records, the city topped the most polluted list at least six times in January – on January 4, 5, 6, 10, 21 and 27 – and eight days in February – on February 2, 3, 4, 10, 25, 26 and 27.

In March, the city topped the list two times – on March 2 and 8.

On all the 15 occasions in the three months mentioned above, the city topped the list even though AQI was under “poor” or “very poor” categories.

An AQI between zero and 50 is considered “good”, 51 and 100 “satisfactory”, 101 and 200 “moderate”, 201 and 300 “poor”, 301 and 400 “very poor”, and 401 and 500 “severe.”

“This is the first time this season that Ghaziabad has topped the list. Since November 21 evening, the AQI levels have been high due to increase in traffic since then, and this contributed to the PM2.5 levels. As a result of traffic, issues of road dust also came into play, which increased PM10 levels,” said Utsav Sharma, regional officer of the Uttar Pradesh pollution control board.

The CPCB’s bulletin said that the primary contributor to Ghaziabad’s AQI is PM2.5.

PM2.5 and PM10 levels need computation for past 24 hours as they have to be averaged for all the four monitoring stations of Ghaziabad.

“Our Indirapuram and Vasundhara stations are also not relaying data to CPCB since Monday afternoon. Due to this, the exact data could not be computed. Further, there is construction work going on in Loni which has also affected the overall AQI. The two stations of Loni and Sanjay Nagar are in higher levels of “very poor” category. So, overall air quality is affected,” he added.

The situation had also prevailed in winter season of 2019, when the city had topped the list of the most polluted city on several occasions, including October 16 and 24, and from October 27 to 31, barring October 28, and again on November 2, 14, 15, 19, 20 and 21 as well.