'Pollution source could be small but its impact significant'

With trucks and two-wheelers contributing to 79 per cent of vehicular traffic pollution in Delhi as compared to only 10 per cent by four-wheelers, a leading expert on air quality today said concerted efforts would be needed to bring down the blanket of pollution in the entire National Capital Region.
In a talk at an event here, Prof Mukesh Sharma of IIT Kanpur, the lead author of the Delhi government-commissioned project to conduct a comprehensive study to measure contributions from different sources of particulate matter pollution, also listed biomass burning, secondary particles, vehicles and road dust as four major reasons for pollution.

He said "while the source may be small but its impact could rather be significant."
The government had imposed the odd-even road-rationing scheme from April 15-30 restricing movement of four-wheelers.
The study of air quality carried for the period in the last one-two years claims that of the total pollution from vehicles, 46 per cent was from trucks, followed by 33 per cent from two-wheelers.
Sharma, however, parried any direct question on whether the scheme was effective or not. "We have not analysed the odd-even thing nor we have looked at it."
He also flagged concern about growing nitrogen oxide (NO) emission but said that particulate matters (PM) level 2.5 was "way too high" which is 4-7 times more than the national air quality standard.

The report also said that bio-mass burning in Punjab and Haryana was also a major pollutant in winter, road dust contributed to 28 per cent of total air pollution in Delhi in summer, which was the highest.