After inaugurating ‘India’s first smog tower on Monday in the national capital, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said that if the pilot project is successful, it will be replicated across the capital.
“To fight pollution, we have installed India's first smog tower in Delhi today. It can help clean air within one-kilometer range. It has been installed on an experiment basis and data from it will be analysed by IIT-Delhi and IIT-Bombay,” the Delhi Chief Minister said after inaugurating the smog 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.
ADVERTISEMENT
The Delhi cabinet had approved the smog tower project in October last year.
A two-year pilot study will ascertain the effectiveness of the smog tower. A control room has been set up at the site to monitor its operations, an official said.
Another 25-metre-tall smog tower, built by the central government at Anand Vihar, is expected to become operational by August 31.
ADVERTISEMENT
The Delhi Pollution Control Committee is the nodal agency for the smog tower at Connaught Place, while the Central Pollution Control Board is the nodal agency for the one at Anand Vihar.
The two towers will have 1,200 air filters each developed by experts at the University of Minnesota in the United States, which also helped design a 100-metre smog tower in Xian, China.
The smog towers, built at a cost of Rs 22 crore each, are estimated to reduce the concentration of PM2.5 up to 70 per cent within a one-km radius.
The Supreme Court had in January last year directed the central government to construct a smog tower to reduce pollution at Anand Vihar and the Delhi government to install another such structure at Connaught Place in three months.