2nd week of odd-even scheme witnessed high pollution, NGT told

Pollution levels during the second week of odd-even car rationing scheme remained high in the national capital, the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) today told the National Green Tribunal.
"In the second week of the event (22-30 April), pollution level increased due to dip in the wind speed (0.72-1.68m/s). Almost same trend was observed in PM10 and Nitrogen Dioxide. Same trend was observed for residential area. Also, the adjacent and away from roadside area the behavior of the pollutants and wind speed was same," the DPCC told a bench headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar.
The DPCC report, which spans three different intervals, before, during and after the odd-even scheme was enforced, has attributed the decline in the air quality to the reduced wind speed, crop burning, with blazes at landfill sites and forest fires in Uttarakhand being added factors.

"The analysis of the data generated before, during event and after the event shows that the total period was highly influenced by meteorological parameters like wind speed, wind direction, ambient temperature etc.
"It is also observed that local and trans-state movement of pollutants also influenced the air quality of Delhi. The probable factors are crop residue burning in Haryana, Punjab, local fire in Delhi including fire in land-fill sites and Uttarakhand fire might also have had effect on ambient air quality," the DPCC report said.
It, however, said that range of concentration of particulate matter decreased as compared to the previous week (pre-event) during the first week of the scheme.

The average value of PM 2.5, recorded at 89 micrograms per cubic metre (ug/m3) between April 6-14, went up to 111 during the first week of the scheme and 154 in its second week. Wind speed fell from 1.6 to 1.1 metres per second during the period.

PM 10 rose from 323 ug/m3 in the first week to 360 ug/m3 while level of NO2 rose from 63 ug/m3 to 93 ug/m3. The safe standards of PM 2.5 and PM 10 are 60 and 100 respectively.
The report further said that the three-tier monitoring
was done at the level of the six fixed stations, through the application of light scattering technique at 74 locations and manual monitoring at 20 residential and 15 industrial locations.

The 74 locations included 21 locations on the seven borders of Delhi where one sample was taken inside Delhi (1-2 km), second sample was on border and third sample around two kilometres inside the neighboring state and also the Ring Roads which see heavy traffic.
The level of PM 2.5 and PM 10 decreased between April 15-21 in areas such as ITO, Pragati Maidan, Delhi Secretariat, Munirka, Sarai Kale Khan, Model Town while they shot up in areas like Ghazipur, Anand Vihar, Noida border, Bhajanpura and Wazirabad.
"The analysis of data shows that for PM 10, range was almost same in the locations of Delhi central and Outer Ring Road. However, at borders slight increase from pre-event concentrations was observed and a decrease from 1-6 May (post event) was observed.

"While at inner Ring Road, a decrease was observed in the first week. In PM 2.5 concentration, the reduction was observed at locations Delhi's central areas and inner Ring Road. In the second half, increase was observed at all the locations for PM 2.5 and PM 10," it said.