Who monitors the ambient air quality in India?
Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and State Pollution Control Boards (SPCBs)/Pollution Control Committees (PCCs) monitors the ambient air quality at 680 monitoring stations located in 300 cities/towns covering 29 states and 6 union territories across the country under National Air Quality Monitoring Programme (NAMP).
The objectives of the NAMP are to determine status and trends of ambient air quality; to ascertain whether the prescribed ambient air quality standards are violated; to Identify Non-attainment Cities; to obtain the knowledge and understanding necessary for developing preventive and corrective measures and to understand the natural cleansing process undergoing in the environment through pollution dilution, dispersion, wind based movement, dry deposition, precipitation and chemical transformation of pollutants generated.
What the pollutants measured under NAMP
Under N.A.M.P., four air pollutants viz ., Sulphur Dioxide (SO2), Oxides of Nitrogen as NO2, Suspended Particulate Matter (SPM) and Respirable Suspended Particulate Matter (RSPM / PM10) have been identified for regular monitoring at all the locations. The monitoring of meteorological parameters such as wind speed and wind direction, relative humidity (RH) and temperature were also integrated with the monitoring of air quality.
CPCB has also issued directions to non-attainment cities for implementation of measures to mitigate air pollution in 2016.
How has ambient air quality monitoring evolved in India?
Ambient Air Quality Monitoring- a chronology
1984
• National Ambient Air Quality Monitoring (NAAQM) started by CPCB . Renamed as National Air Quality Monitoring Programme (NAMP). Only 7 stations at Agra and Anpara.
• Only 3 pollutants were monitored
1985- 28 stations
2012- 544 covering 224 cities in 26 states and 5 Union Territories as
1994- National Ambient Air Quality Standards on April 11, 1994
2009
• Revised National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) [NAAQS Notification dated 18th November, 2009]
• Specified Standards for 12 pollutants
• Instead of land-use classification , keeping in view health impact of air pollution the category of area affected was revised to include – 1. Industrial areas/residential areas and Ecologically sensitive areas
• Real-time monitoring also started from 2009 onwards.
2015
• Ambient air quality index was released
• CPCB has recently expanded monitoring through continuous monitoring instruments that are capable of generating data on the real time basis for most of the pollutants like PM2.5, O3, CO etc regularly.
CPCB has also started releasing daily health advisory based on real-time monitoring. On this basis CPCB is issuing the Air quality index for a few cities on a daily basis.
The AQI is decided on ambient concentration values of air pollutants and their likely health impacts which are commonly called health break points.
The pollution parameters whose concentration is measured in ambient air include particulate matter that are of size 2.5 microns (PM 2.5), PM 10, nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide, carbon monoxide, ozone, ammonia and lead.
The pollution parameter is measured over a period of 24 hours and the data is revealed by the CPCB the following day. This is used to give health advisory for the masses.
Non-attainment cities – 94 cities in 22 states of India
What are non-attainment cities
CPCB has identified list of polluted cities in which the prescribed National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) are violated. These cities have been identified based on ambient air quality data obtained (2011-2015) under National Air Quality Monitoring Programme (NAMP).
CPCB has issued directions to non-attainment cities for implementation of measures to mitigate air pollution in 2016.
