An automatic ambient air monitoring station was inaugurated by Delhi Chief Secretary Rakesh Mehta at Indira Gandhi International Airport here on Tuesday.
"Four more stations will be inaugurated at Vikas Bhawan-II, a major office complex of the Delhi Government in Civil Line Area in Northern Ridge; Sarvodaya Kanya Vidyalaya Punjabi Bagh; NP Senior Secondary School Mandir Marg; and Anand Vihar Bus Terminal," Mr. Mehta added.
He said the Delhi Pollution Control Committee has been striving hard to monitor air quality by taking suitable measures to commission a reliable ambient air monitoring network in the Capital.
Meanwhile, another conventional ambient air monitoring station at Kendriya Vidyalaya in Sector-2 of R.K. Puram was also inaugurated on Tuesday.
The ambient air monitoring station at Delhi airport is first such station at any airport in South-East Asia. The station will disseminate data on critical parameters and direct it to DPCC regularly at interval of 15 minutes.
The data is expected to help in the formulation of policies of the Government. The data generated is available on public domain on site of DPCC – dpcc.delhigovt.nic.in and on www.dpccairdata.com. The station will be functional round-the-clock even in the worst weather.
"The station at IGI Airport is unique in the sense that it is the first real time ambient air monitoring station and only one operational for collection of 12 parameters anywhere in the world. All the latest parameter including PM10, PM2.5, sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide, ammonia, benzene, toluene, P-xylene can be monitored at this station. Further samples could be collected for more analysis for arsenic, nickel and lead," added Mr. Mehta.
He noted that the network consisting of six monitoring stations are working on two separate principles. Two of them are based on differential optic absorbance spectroscopy whereas the other two are fully automatic. He stated that the Delhi Government is likely to conduct a study to make Delhi a carbon neutral city.
