Nagpur: The haze and dullness in the air has started gripping Nagpur city since a couple of days as winter season is at the doorstep. The ambient air quality of Nagpur city on Tuesday was recorded ‘poor’ that can cause breathing discomfort to most people with prolonged exposure.
All four newly installed Continuous Ambient Air Quality Monitoring Stations (CAAQMS) in Nagpur have started working in the month of June and on Tuesday, these four CAAQMS reported the PM 2.5 level above 200 mark, which is considered in ‘poor’ category. CAAQMS in the Mahal area reported the highest PM2.5 with 247 at 5 pm on Tuesday. Due to heavy traffic and ongoing construction work on Amravati Road, the CAAQMS at Ram Nagar area reported the air quality level at 230 mark at 10 am which was second poorest after Mahal area.
Wenesday Rate
Wed 25 Dec. 2024
CAAQMS in Ambazari area reported the PM2.5 level was222 mark at 3 pm. The oldest station which is situated at the General Post Office (GPO) in Civil Lines area recorded the PM2.5 level of 211 mark which was recorded at 7 pm on Tuesday. On Monday, Mahal and Ram Nagar areas also crossed the poor air quality mark with 216 and 219 respectively. Ambazari was 193 and GPO was 178.
All the three new CAAQMS that are installed by Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) in different parts of the city started working in the month of January this year. However, MPCB has started uploading the data of these stations on CPCB website for public use from June 12. Nagpur city got these three CAAQMS under the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) mission started by the Government of India to improve the air quality of major cities that have high pollution.
MPCB got the funds to install these CAAQMS last year and the installation of stations also took place within a few months. But due to some technical issues, the functioning of these stations took some time and finally it started gathering the air quality data of different areas of the city from June.
Normally, the air quality of Nagpur city remains satisfactory or moderate and on very rare events the air quality deteriorates to ‘poor’ level and it happens mostly during winter season. This year, the air quality was first observed at ‘poor’ level on Tuesday as the minimum temperature of Nagpur city dipped below 17 degrees Celsius. With decrease in temperature, the air quality of Nagpur is likely to remain above 200 mark in the coming month.
