CHENNAI: The State government is in the process of establishing 25 Continuous Ambient Air Quality Monitoring Stations (CAAQMS) across various district headquarters and for the first time, an Air Quality Index (AQI) would be generated, which could be displayed in the public domain.
The project costing about Rs 40 crore, would be completed in a month’s time. These real-time monitoring stations are predominantly put up in educational institutions and locations were carefully selected to capture the peak pollution data, which can be analysed and used by policymakers to take appropriate mitigation measures.
Officials in the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) told Express that 10 stations have already been installed and started generating real-time data to Care Air Centre (CAC) located in the pollution board’s corporate office in Chennai.
“Out of 25, 20 stations will be operational by this month end and the remaining would be installed by next month. The stations will transfer data to TNPCB for generating AQI, which could be displayed in the public domain. A private company has been awarded the contract for installing and maintaining the stations for the initial five years,” an official said.
Sources said the pollution control board has signed Memoranda of Understanding with several educational institutions, that have expressed interest in using the CAAQMs data for academic and research purposes.
The stations would record eight parameters to assess air quality. This included analysis of particulate matter less than 10 micron and 2.5 micron (PM10 & PM2.5), Sulphur dioxide (SO2), Nitrogen dioxide (NO2 ), Ammonia (NH3 ), Ozone (O3), Carbon monoxide (CO) and Benzene. Besides, it can also measure wind direction, wind speed, ambient temperature, related humidity, solar radiation, rainfall, barometric pressure, etc.
Before this, Tamil Nadu had only nine CAAQMs, of which five stations are in Chennai, located in Koyambedu, Royapuram, Perungudi, Kodungaiyur and Manali. Others are at SIPCOT areas in Gummidipoondi, Thoothukudi, Perundurai and Coimbatore.
This apart, under National Air Quality Monitoring Programme (NAMP), TNPCB is monitoring the ambient air quality in 28 locations by installing respirable dust samplers. In Chennai, eight locations falling in different land use areas, are being monitored.
Industrial zones (Kathivakkam, Manali and Thiruvattiyur), commercial and traffic intersection (Kilpauk, Nungambakkam and T Nagar) and residential zones (Anna Nagar and Adyar), are being monitored.