Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday launched a website, www.raasman.com, which provides real-time data on the sources of air pollution in the city and is expected to help the Delhi government frame effective policies to curb it.
The website reflects data collected and processed by two laboratories — a ‘super site’ and a mobile laboratory. The laboratories were used for the “real-time source apportionment study”, under which data on Delhi’s air were collected over many months and a model (software) created, which shows the sources of air pollution by using air from the surroundings as input.
The study is being conducted by various institutes, including IIT Kanpur, IIT Delhi and The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), at a cost of around ₹12 crore for the Delhi Pollution Control Committee.
The real-time data could put to rest the frequent tussles between the Delhi and the Central governments over what causes air pollution in the Capital, especially in winter when it spikes.
The Delhi government has been stating that stubble burning is the major cause of air pollution while the Centre has on several occasions cited local pollutants as the main reason.
Paradigm shift
“Until now (to understand the sources of air pollution), we had relied upon studies conducted as one-off analyses. The issue with such an approach was that we frame policies based on limited data,” Mr. Kejriwal said on Monday.
He said the data from the new study launched on Monday showed that the major contributors to pollution changed hourly.
“Until we find the sources of pollution on a real-time basis, we cannot frame an effective policy on the issue,” he said.
The CM said the real-time data will also help forecast the city’s major pollution drivers over the coming days, which will assist the government in taking corrective steps.
“If we find that the main source of pollution in a municipal ward is dust, then the local councillor could take steps to control the dust in his ward. If industrial pollution in a ward is the biggest source of pollution, then the State government could take the corrective actions,” he also said, adding that the Delhi government was planning to launch several more such laboratories in the city.
