Exercise to monitor noise, air pollution gathers pace
Ghaziabad ranked as the second-most polluted city in the world after Bhiwadi in Rajasthan as per the World Air Quality Report 2021 that was released in April
GHAZIABAD: The Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board (UP-PCB) on Tuesday said that they have started a special air quality and noise monitoring exercise for the pre-diwali period and the activity will also extend after the festival.
The official records of the UP-PCB indicate that the pre-diwali air quality index (AQI) for 15 days before the festival was the worst in the year 2020.
The average AQI pre-diwali monitoring figures stood at 317, 357, 272, 400 and 271 in the years 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 respectively.
“The pre-diwali air quality monitoring has been started and similar activity will also take place for the post-diwali period. The post-diwali period will also include special monitoring for the presence of metals in air. The pre-diwali monitoring is taking place at our monitoring station in Vasundhara and one mobile unit each will monitor noise pollution in cis-hindon and trans-hindon areas,” said Utsav Sharma, UP-PCB regional officer.
“The monitoring of metals will include finding the presence of iron, arsenic, aluminium, barium, lead and nickel, among others. The entire monitoring exercise will also find levels of PM10, PM2.5, sulphur
dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, etc,” Sharma added.
Diwali falls on October 24 this year.
The official figures state that the AQI on Diwali stood at 323, 295, 298, 456 and 419 in the years 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 respectively.
The monitoring for presence of metals conducted during the Diwali period last year indicated that arsenic, aluminium and barium, which are used in firecrackers, were not detected during the period of special monitoring. There was a minor spike of lead and iron content on Diwali day last year, while nickel content was found in a minor proportion during the pre-diwali period and not during Diwali or post-diwali period, the report said.
Meanwhile, the state government so far has not issued any directions for sale or manufacture of firecrackers this year and the district administration has also not started issuing any retail sale licences.
“The pollution levels remain high across Ghaziabad city during the Diwali season and it has almost become a standard feature during the past several years. The special monitoring for air quality, however, should extend to different parts of the city to bring out a correct picture of air pollution levels,” said Akash Vashishtha, a Ghaziabadbased environmentalist.
“Even if the officials find higher levels, they will not be able to trace the source. For this, a special study of different pollution sources is required by
an expert agency and corrective actions should follow,” Vashishtha added.
Ghaziabad is among the 16 “non-attainment” cities in the state and its pollution levels generally remain on the higher side during the onset of winter.
Cities are declared “non-attainment” if they do not meet the National Ambient Air Quality Standards for particulate matter (PM10) or nitrogen dioxide (No2) over a period of five years. Earlier in April this year, Ghaziabad ranked as the second-most polluted city in the world after Bhiwadi in Rajasthan as per the World Air Quality Report 2021.
The annual report, prepared by Switzerland-based organisation IQAIR, surveyed 6,475 cities across the world.