NAGPUR: After a long await, the city is finally getting four new air quality monitoring stations. The locations, as finalized by the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB), are Town Hall in Mahal, Medical Square, Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology (VNIT) and Laxminarayan Institute of Technology (LIT).
The development was announced by VM Motghare, joint director (air quality) in MPCB during an online discussion ‘Town Hall’ which was organized by Climate Voices which is a collective of three organizations — Purpose, Asar and Climate Trends. It, along with the state’s environment and climate change department’s Majhi Vasundhara (My Earth Campaign) initiative, aims to engage citizens to have a conversation about air quality and amplify solutions.
As reported by TOI many times, it has been a long-time demand of environment activists to increase the number of air quality monitoring stations in the city. However, they fell not all the selected locations are appropriate. “Most of the existing monitoring stations including the ones at MPCB office, GPO, divisional commissioner office and Shankar Nagar square are in a radius of two kilometers. Bringing two more – LIT and VNIT—in the same radius will do no good,” said Kaustav Chatterjee, founder of NGO Green Vigil Foundation.
Chatterjee further suggested that stations should be installed near coal-fired power plants and solid waste dumping site at Bhandewadi where the air is most toxic. “At present, the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) calculates the city’s air quality index based on the data of only one station at Civil Lines, which is one of the least polluted areas. To get the real picture, data of multiple stations spread out in different directions should be analyzed,” he added.
Motghare further announced that Rs 33 crore has been sanctioned for the city by the Union finance ministry to improve the air quality. Earlier, the city had also received Rs 10 crore for it under the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP).
Experts maintained that there is zero accountability of where such hefty amount is going. “This is public money but still there is no transparency on its utilization. Rs 50 lakh are allocated for creating public awareness, which is not happening at all,” said Leena Buddhe, director of Nagpur’s Centre for Sustainable Development.
Buddhe added that strong baseline data is needed to establish improvement in air quality. “Considering the city’s population and geographical area, at least 33 monitoring stations are needed,” she added.
During the Town Hall discussion, Manisha Mhaiskar, principal secretary of state’s environment and climate change department, said, “This decade is possibly the last one for positive climate action, which can help slow down the impacts of climate change. This is why the government launched a 360 degree campaign on Majhi Vasundhara, engaging 700 cities across the state, from metropolises like Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur, to villages from Vidarbha. These recommendations will be submitted before the chief minister Uddhav Thackeray and environment minister Aaditya Thackeray on June 5 (World Environment Day).”
MONITORING STATIONS
New | Town Hall in Mahal, Medical Square, Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology and Laxminarayan Institute of Technology
Old | MPCB office, GPO, divisional commissioner office and Shankar Nagar square
Green Demand | Install them at Bhandewadi and power stations
Proximity | Old and new are too close to each other
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