Homemade technology for low-cost, reliable monitoring of pollution
The Central Pollution Control Board – the country’s apex pollution monitoring body – is trying to break the monopoly of foreign pollution-monitoring instruments and pave the way for low-cost indigenous products.
As of now, pollution monitoring bodies such as the Delhi Pollution Control Board and the Central Pollution Control Board relies on instruments brought from abroad to measure pollution levels, the cost of which often run into crores.
Indigenous low cost products are not used as they are not certified by any agencies such as the Bureau of Indian Standards, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, IITs or the CPCB itself.
“But now we are trying to develop a standard for such indigenous low-cost pollution monitoring instruments and set up an infrastructure that could certify Indian products. A five-member committee with experts from NEERI, IIT, National Physical Laboratory and CPCB has been proposed to look into the issue,” said an official of the CPCB.
The cost of setting up an automatic monitoring station is at least ₹1 crore. These automatic analysers are all approved by US-EPA and monitor eight common pollutants. The operational cost could run up to ₹10 lakh.
“Low-cost Indian monitors are not preferred as they are not certified by any certifying agency. The cost can’t be the only criteria for procurement of a sampler. Quality data is the first priority,” said an official of DPCC.
The purchased products need to be certified by an agency on many physical, chemical and technical parameters. The committee would recommend and suggest on these issues, formulate guidelines for performance evaluation of such technologies.
It would take at least a year before such standards could be set and an infrastructure could be put in place.
Experts said that purchasing low-cost Indian instrument would not only give a boost to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s umbrella project of ‘Make in India’ but would also allow more monitoring stations to come up.
“This would help us to widen our network of monitoring stations
THE GOVT HAD PLANNED TO SET UP MONITORING CENTRES IN 46 CITIES. TO DATE, ONLY 29 CITIES HAVE SUCH STATIONS
across the city, which would help gather data,” said an official.
Two years ago when the National Air Quality Index was launched, a target was set cover 46 cities. But to date only 29 have monitoring stations. Of this, some have only one monitoring station each, resulting in dearth of data. The northeast has virtually no such infrastructure that could provide data on air pollution.
The CPCB had suggested setting up at least nine each in mega cities, at least six each in state capitals and three stations each in class one cities.