Air quality monitoring lacks uniformity in India:US researcher

Mechanism of air quality monitoring in India is fairly robust in places but lacks uniformity across the country, a US-based researcher said today.
Gwen W Collman of the US' National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) said another issue that the country's monitoring mechanism needs to surmount is the lack of 'chemical speciation,' that helps in identifying composition of pollutants and their place of origin.
"From what I could gather, the air quality monitoring is fairly sophisticated in India. But it is not uniform across the country. Stations are not present in many places.
"Another important aspect that is lacking is chemical speciation which is important as it helps in identifying the the composition of pollutants and where they are coming from, which differs from place to place," Collman, who is the Director of NIEHS Division of Extramural Research and Training, told PTI.

She is in the city to deliberate on the subject as part of the three-day-long Indo-US workshop to explore bilateral research opportunities to address air quality and health impact.
Agencies that have a network of monitoring stations across the country include Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and SAFAR (System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research) of the Ministry of Earth Sciences.

On the health side, Collman said the major problem was getting data from hospitals.
She said these were among the major issues that figured in the workshop attended by leading scientists from both the countries as well as Canada.

Organisers of the workshop said it was aimed at identifying key areas of collaboration among the US and Indian scientists to address research needs in air pollution exposure assessment and health research.