Environment Minister Gopal Rai on Thursday said Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will inaugurate the city’s first “smog tower” to help purify polluted air.
“The smog tower will be inaugurated by Chief Minister Shri Arvind Kejriwal on August 23, 2021. Next, experts will start monitoring the performance of the tower and then assess its impact on the environment. We will then accordingly submit a report to the government and act upon the plan,” Mr. Rai said after inspecting the tower at Baba Kharak Singh Marg in Connaught Place.
The smog tower is a 24 metre-high structure fitted with fans and air filters and it will draw in polluted air from the top and release purified air near the ground through fans fitted on sides. The tower has 40 big fans and 5,000 filters to clean the air.
Supreme Court order
On January 13 last year, the Supreme Court ordered the Delhi government to build a smog tower at Connaught Place in the city by April 13, 2020, to control air pollution.
On the same day, the court also ordered a smog tower to be installed in Anand Vihar by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) by the same time. But the governments missed the deadlines for both the towers.
On July 29, 2020, the Supreme Court threatened contempt action against the Indian Institute of Technology (Bombay) on learning that the premier institution has opted to pull out of the court-ordered project to instal the tower.
Less than a month after this, an MoU was signed for building the tower.
The Delhi Pollution Control Committee of the State government was the nodal authority for building the tower. IIT Mumbai and IIT Delhi were technical advisors and Tata Project Ltd. executed the project.
The smog tower is a pilot project and is expected to influence the air quality of more than 1 km in the downwind direction, said an official.
“The government is working on reducing pollution in the city; be it dust pollution, vehicular pollution or stubble burning...I am certain that the smog tower will contribute immensely towards this cause. The smog tower will work with full force after the monsoon sea son,” Mr. Rai said.
