india

Updated: Aug 24, 2019 00:49 IST

The union environment ministry has designated Council of Scientific and Industrial Research—National Physical Laboratory (CSIR-NPL) as the national verification agency for certifying instruments and equipments for monitoring emissions and ambient air quality.

The ministry issued a notification on August 22 under section 3 of the Environment Protection Act giving CSIR NPL the authority to certify instruments.

CSR NPL will develop necessary infrastructure, testing and certification facilities conforming to ISO standards for both automatic and manual samplers.

There has been a boom in equipment for real time monitoring of air quality. These are affordable and portable devices but experts have questioned whether they are properly calibrated and capable of giving accurate readings.

“As an approach this is good. We are expanding our monitoring network now and quality control is very important. Credible data is needed. Along with that once instruments are certified we need transparent dissemination of data,” said Anumita RoyChowdhury, executive director, Centre for Science and Environment (CSE).

Under the national clean air programme (NCAP) the Centre aims to expand the air monitoring network to cities that don’t comply with air quality standards.

Under NCAP, the Centre has the task of delivering by 2024 its target of 20-30% reduction in PM 2.5 (fine, respirable pollution particles) and PM 10 (coarse pollution particles) concentration in 102 non-attainment cities over 2017 levels.

Non-attainment cities are those that did not meet the annual PM 10 national standard from 2011 to 2015.