“We have been working on this for quite some time,” he said.
Kejriwal on Friday reviewed the progress of the ‘Real-time Source Apportionment Project’. The project aiming at identifying the sources of Delhi’s pollution on a real time basis, has been undertaken by the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) in collaboration with the Indian Institute of Kanpur (IIT-K), Indian Institute of Delhi (IIT-D) and TERI.
Talking about the study, the Chief Minister stated, “Identification of sources of air pollution on a real time basis has now started in Delhi. Delhi Government & IIT Kanpur’s Real Time Source Apportionment Study is helping Delhi with pollution related data in a proactive manner. We have ordered officials to immediately take action to reduce pollution based on the study’s findings. Delhi Government will place the analysis before CAQM, so Centre too can act upon the problem.”
The Real-time Source Apportionment Study consists of a Supersite with state-of-the-art air analysers and a mobile air quality monitoring system, which will measure the level of various substances in the air above Delhi.
The team from IIT Kanpur informed that the secondary inorganic aerosols which travel long distance contribute to a large proportion of the air pollution mix, and biomass burning (wood, stubble etc), vehicular emissions and dust (road and construction) are the other major sources of PM2.5 in the last one month.
The team also showed hourly data on the sources of pollution in recent days and the direction from which external pollution may have reached Delhi.
After the meeting, Kejriwal instructed environment department and Delhi Pollution Control Committee to start taking actions to identify sources and locations of pollution, and take all required steps immediately to control pollution.
He also encouraged the DPCC and IIT Kanpur team to meet the Commission for Air Quality Management to share the findings.
“Addressing air quality in Delhi is a combined effort from multiple stakeholders. A state-of-the-art project that we conceptualised almost two years back has now started giving us rich data on a real time basis. I have asked Delhi Government officials to immediately take actions based on the study’s findings, as well as to share the analysis with the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) for action by the Government of India,” said Kejriwal.