Gurugram likely to get a smog tower like Delhi

The city is likely to get a smog tower this year, along with vehicle free zones, to combat air pollution. Gurugram MP Rao Inderjit Singh directed district officials to chalk out a plan to curb the increasing levels of air pollution in the city during a review meeting on Tuesday.

“To control pollution, authorities must work on a plan of setting up smog towers in Gurugram on the lines of the one that has been constructed in Delhi’s Connaught Place. Gurugram is a rapidly developing district; serious efforts are needed to improve the air quality and the groundwater level here. Officials must also develop vehicle-free zones in the city to check for air pollution,” said Singh during the meeting.

The smog tower in Connaught Place is a 24m-long structure inaugurated by Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal in August last year. It has 40 fans and 10,000 filters developed by experts from the University of Minnesota in the United States, which also helped design a 100m long smog tower in Xian, China. The tower, which was constructed at an estimated cost of ₹20 crore, can purify air in a 1km radius around it at a rate of 1,000 cubic metres per second.

V K Meena, additional deputy commissioner of Gurugram, who was part of the meeting said, “We are working on the directions and will be floating tenders this month itself, so that the installation of the smog tower can be completed within five to six months. We are planning to get it installed at a local community centre but the location is yet to be finalised. We will also start working with other departments to identify stretches in the city, which can be made into vehicle free zones.”

However, experts have long argued that smog towers are not a long-term solution to Delhi-NCR’s air pollution problem.Experts have reiterated that not only would people have to remain extremely close to the smog tower to breathe clean air but thousands of such smog towers would have to be installed across the city to improve the air quality.

Sachin Panwar, an independent air quality expert, said smog towers have been installed at several places but they do not work as the air blowing out from these towers is equally or more polluted.

“The air that is released from the smog tower comes out at a high velocity and has a cyclonic impact. What the tower does is suck all the pollutants and when it releases air, because of the cyclonic impact, it attracts pollutants from the ambient air, making it even more polluted than it was before. Unless the smog towers build an air canopy, the purpose for which they are constructed will be defeated as when one moves just 5ft feet away from the tower, they again have to breathe polluted air,” said Panwar.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday, Gurugram recorded ‘poor’ quality of air with an air quality index of 242 according to the 4pm bulletin of the Central Pollution Control Board.

According to the Air Quality Early Warning System for Delhi, the air quality over the national capital territory is likely to improve and remain in poor to moderate category on Thursday and moderate category on Friday as better ventilation conditions favourable for effective dispersion of pollutants are likely to prevail from Thursday onwards.