LI Network
Published on: November 16, 2023 at 19:00 IST
The Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) has conveyed to the National Green Tribunal (NGT) that employing smog towers is not a practical solution to address air pollution in the national capital.
The DPCC referred to reports from the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) in Bombay and Delhi, revealing that within a 100-meter radius, a smog tower can only achieve a 17 percent reduction in pollution. To cover the entire area of Delhi, approximately 40,000 such towers would be necessary, according to the pollution control body.
In light of these findings, the committee has proposed accepting the outcomes of the IIT studies and repurposing the already erected towers as museums for disseminating technical information about air pollution control.
“In case 17% reduction in 100 m radius is to be considered favourable Delhi needs more than 40,000 such towers to cover its geographic area. This cannot be a practical solution and the result of the experiment should be accepted, and Smog Tower already erected may be used for dissemination of the technical information about control of air pollution as a museum,” stated the DPCC’s report.
This statement was made in response to a suo motu proceeding initiated by the NGT’s Principal Bench in Delhi concerning air pollution in the capital city. The matter is being heard by Chairperson Justice Prakash Shrivastava, judicial member Sudhir Agarwal, and expert member Dr. A Senthil Vel, initiated following news reports on the deteriorating air quality in Delhi.
A news report highlighted that one of the two installed smog towers at Connaught Place and Anand Vihar was not operational. The DPCC mentioned that both smog towers were found to be inefficient according to a two-year study by IIT Bombay and IIT Delhi. Despite this, the Anand Vihar tower was operationalized following a Supreme Court directive on November 7.
The DPCC’s report also outlined that the capital cost of a tower is ₹25 crore, with a recurring cost of ₹10 to 15 lakh per month. Therefore, the DPCC concluded that the use of smog towers is not justified, stating, “Both the Towers were for experiment, and the experiment results are not at all encouraging to incur the heavy expenditure from public money.”
The matter is scheduled for the next hearing on November 20. In the previous hearing on November 8, the NGT had directed the concerned authorities, including the DPCC, to file fresh action-taken reports due to the lack of visible improvement in air quality in Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR).
