Noida’s Sector 125 air quality monitoring station dysfunctional for 20 days
Ghaziabad: The air quality monitoring station at Sector 125 in Noida is out of order since October 15, affecting the calculation of the air quality index (AQI) value for the city. Officials of the UP Pollution Control Board (UPPCB) said the equipment of the station is under repairs and is likely to be in running condition in a day or two.
As a result of the system crash, AQI for the Noida city is getting calculated by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) only on the basis of readings of the other three monitoring stations at sectors 1, 62, and 116.
“The system completely crashed and it could not be repaired despite repeated attempts. It is now under process to bring it up and data connections to CPCB are also in process of getting restored. It is expected that the system will be repaired in the next one or two days,” said Praveen Kumar, regional officer of UPPCB at Noida.
Sector 125 is a commercial and institutional area and on the banks of river Yamuna right across Faridabad.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday, the air quality in Noida and Greater Noida witnessed a mild deterioration in air quality, while Ghaziabad saw a slight improvement in its air quality. However, the air quality in all the three cities largely remained under the ‘very poor’ category.
According to CPCB’s bulletin, the AQI values for Noida, Ghaziabad and Greater Noida were recorded at 321, 340 and 356, respectively on Tuesday, as against 299, 355 and 310, respectively, recorded on Monday.
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”.
In Ghaziabad, the Sanjay Nagar monitoring station which was running under “severe” category from November 1 onwards stood under “very poor” category on Tuesday.
“There was improvement in AQI on Tuesday as the high levels of pollution recorded by Sanjay Nagar monitoring station came down. We took up extensive water sprinkling at the dusty areas around the station and it helped. Overall, the AQI of Ghaziabad was less on Tuesday as compared to AQI on Monday,” said Utsav Sharma, regional officer of the UPPCB.
On the other hand, the System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research (SAFAR) on Tuesday predicted that marginal deterioration is forecasted for November 4 and 5 towards the middle of “very poor” category.
“The SAFAR synergized stubble fire counts over Punjab, Haryana, UP, Uttarakhand, and neighbouring areas are significant and stood at 3,068 yesterday. However, the boundary layer wind direction became unfavourable (South-westerly today morning) after a long spell, fire-related stubble burning share in PM2.5 in Delhi’s air has significantly decreased and is estimated as 10% for today,” the SAFAR forecast said.
The contribution of the stubble burning to Delhi’s PM2.5 had gone to all-time high of 40% this season on November 1.