Bengaluru: The country has only 731 monitoring stations for 321 cities and towns, which is only 5 per cent of the total 6,166 census cities and towns, states a report, At the Crossroads, by Delhi-based not for profit organisation, Centre For Science and Environment.
These stations monitor sulphur dioxide, nitorgen dioxide, PM10 and PM 2.5, but the report points to the deficit of real monitoring data. “There are only 168 continuous real-time monitors, covering 102 cities, a mere 1.7% of the total cities Interestingly, approximately 48% of real-time monitoring stations are in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana. This shows acute deficit in real-time monitoring data in most parts of the country. Only Delhi has made substantial progress to increase its monitoring stations to 34 that track air quality continuously and relay real-time information,” the report says.
Bengaluru, in the region wise trend of PM 10 concentration, falls in the moderate category. It says in 2017, Bengaluru and Pune levels were higher than the regional average by 1.2 times. Jabalpur, Pimpri and Chinchwad are the other regions that fall under this region. The report suggests that it is important to make preparation of the inventory of pollution source mandatory for state pollution control boards.
“This is the first crucial step that is needed to quantify the pollution sources by sector to define mitigation strategy. Even though several emission inventory studies have been carried out in India, the details of the pollution sources are not available in the public domain,” the report adds.
