(Source: ANI photo) (Source: ANI photo)

Following orders from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), major traffic intersections in the national capital will display hourly Air Quality Index (AQI) and health advisories on LED panels under a Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) project. The project, which was earlier envisaged by the Delhi government but not executed, will also be extended to the city’s hospitals and Metro stations, soon.

“Fifty traffic signals have been selected for the first phase of the initiative,” said CPCB scientist Aditya Sharma, who oversaw its rollout. He added that the PMO was behind the move. “We have covered major signals in ITO and Connaught Place, for now,” Sharma said.

Sharma was speaking on the sidelines of a CPCB conference on air quality and waste management. For now, the CPCB has not put up separate panels for this but said it was using existing display boards used by the traffic police to show warnings and short video clips on road safety. Further, CPCB’s air quality laboratory chief Dipankar Saha said the pollution regulator was also in talks with the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) and major hospitals in the city to put up similar panels.

The LED panels display hourly AQI readings and the associated health advisories. For instance, an AQI between 0-50 is considered ‘Good’, 51-100 is considered ‘Satisfactory’, 101-200 ‘Moderate’, 201-300 ‘Poor’, 301-400 ‘Very Poor’ and 401-500 is considered ‘Severe.’

The Centre-notified Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP), which was formulated by the Supreme Court-appointed Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority on air pollution, places a strong emphasis on information dissemination. Meanwhile, with the ASEAN summit scheduled to take place in Delhi between January 19-31, the CPCB has directed the state pollution control boards in Delhi and NCR to intensify pollution mitigation efforts in the region. “We have asked all NCR states to deploy more machinery and manpower. We have also asked agencies to identify a source of the pollution with GPS coordinates so as to fix the issues quickly,” said a CPCB scientist.

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