Soon, Delhi’s air pollution sources to be available in real time

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to inaugurate a ‘super site’ and mobile lab used for the study coming week

Delhiites would soon be able to know the different sources of air pollution in Delhi and their percentages on a real-time basis with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government all set to put the data in the public domain through a new website, an official source told  The Hindu.

This coming week, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is scheduled to inaugurate a ‘super site’ and mobile laboratory (a lab-on-van capturing air pollution readings and sources from different parts of the city) used for the “real-time source apportionment study”, under which data on Delhi’s air were collected and a model (software) created giving sources of air pollution by using air from the surroundings as input.

The source said the new website will be launched after initial monitoring of real-time data.

The source apportionment study is being done by IIT Kanpur, IIT Delhi, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), and the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Mohali at a cost of around ₹12 crore for the Delhi Pollution Control Committee. The Delhi Cabinet had approved the study in July 2021 and an MoU was signed in October that year.

Clear causes

The real-time data could set at rest the frequent tussle between the Delhi and the Central governments over what causes pollution in the Capital and National Capital Region, especially in winter when it spikes.

The Delhi government has been stating that stubble burning is the major cause of air pollution while the Centre had on several occasions cited local pollutants as the main reason. With AAP coming to power in Punjab, the Bharatiya Janata Party last year also blamed the Bhagwant Mann government for air pollution in Delhi.