Nagpur: To combat the increasing pollution in Nagpur City, the Municipal Commissioner Radhakrishnan B on Wednesday inaugurated the city’s air quality monitoring station at VNIT.
With Nagpur’s population topping approximately 28 lakh, there is an increase in the pollution level too. This is the second air quality monitoring station in the city, the first one installed in the Civil Lines area. However, when asked about the first monitoring station, the NMC chief said that the newly-installed monitoring machine is more advanced than the one installed in Civil Lines.
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“We aim to install three to four air quality monitoring stations in the city so that it is easier to analyse the figures being recorded. These machines will present real-time pollution and air quality data,” Radhakrishnan told Nagpur Today.
According to the NMC boss, Nagpur has two major problems that need to be addressed at the earliest — dust and fossil fuels. “We need to keep an eye on why the pollution in the city is increasing and how we can take up this system to the next level,” he further said.
The newly-installed monitoring machines will be able to showcase eight to nine different parameters while the old one displayed two to three parameters only. “Many cities have found this station expensive but Nagpur has opted for this option as we need to see what exactly will work for us,” Radhakrishnan added.
At present, the monitoring is handled by the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) and VNIT has been asked to analyse the trend recorded. NMC wishes to increase the monitoring stations to get real-time updates from all the parts of the city rather than analysing data from just one part of the city.
“NMC has figured that the pollution is increasing everyday and to combat that the civic body has already started taking steps such as introducing electric buses, making more parks and electric crematoriums to increase the air quality. We also plan to get mechanical sweepers to reduce the dust caused,” NMC supremo said.
