BJP MP Gautam Gambhir inaugurates the smog tower (courtesy his Twitter page) | Photo Credit: Twitter

Key Highlights The national capital got its first smog tower last week, installed in the Lajpat Nagar market area of South Delhi Built at a cost of Rs 7 lakh, the cylindrical device has been installed 24 feet above the road level China’s experiments with such mega anti-pollution towers have had mixed results

Delhi routinely tops the infamous list of the ‘world’s most polluted cities’. This winter’s air pollution levels in the national capital have again been alarmingly high. Unfortunately, petty politics has derailed any attempts to have a sensible public conversation over air pollution.

While the BJP-led government at the Centre blames Arvind Kerjiwal’s AAP government for not doing enough to tackle pollution, the Delhi government insists that the problem is too big for it to handle on its own.

Nevertheless, government functionaries, NGOs, anti-pollution activists, scientists and environmentalists have been proposing a variety of solutions for years. These include slashing down stubble-burning in the neighbouring states of Haryana and Punjab, massive investment in public transport to discourage people from using cars, and stringent anti-pollution norms for industries located in and around Delhi.

Meanwhile, opinion is divided over the efficacy of the Delhi government’s odd-even scheme in combating air pollution.

Now, in the beginning of a new year, another attempt to curb pollution is being implemented – the smog tower. The national capital got its first smog tower last week, installed in the Lajpat Nagar market area of South Delhi.

The 20-feet giant air-purifier was inaugurated by BJP MP and former cricketer Gautam Gambhir.

What is a smog tower and how does it work?

Built at a cost of Rs 7 lakh, the cylindrical device has been installed 24 feet above the road level. If reports are to be believed, it can purify air up to a distance of up to 750 metres, and clean 2.5 to 6 lakh cubic meter of air daily.

The purifier’s exhaust fans are expected to remove up to 80 per cent of the PM 2.5 and PM10 pollutants in the air in the vicinity.

After pollution levels peaked in November 2019, the Supreme Court had directed the state and central governments to come up with a road map on erecting smog towers in the Delhi-NCR region.

Notably, China has been experimenting with giant air purifiers for the last few years.

How effective is a smog tower, really?

The jury is out on this.

China’s experiments with such mega anti-pollution towers have had mixed results. In Beijing’s art district, for instance, a seven metre high anti-pollution device, designed by the Dutch designer Daan Roosegaarde, was installed in 2016.

This was followed by a massive smog tower the size of a skyscraper in Shaanxi province’s capital Xi’an, one of China’s most polluted cities.

The 60-metre-high tower cost nearly USD 2 million. And how effective has it been? Well, according to a report in the state-controlled Global Times it cut air pollution by approximately “15% in a 10-square kilometer area over two years”.

Back of the envelope calculations suggest that to scale this up for the entire city -- Xi’an stretches across 10,000 km² -- around 1,000 such air purifiers would be required. This appears to be a prohibitively expensive exercise, certainly for a country like India.

It will be interesting to see if the Lajpat Nagar experiment has a noticeable impact on the air at least in the area nearby. (Gambhir's personal initiative in this regard is, indeed, laudable.)

But for the city as a whole, both the Delhi and central government will have to come up with more pro-active, realistic and long-term measures in tackling air pollution.

The views expressed by the author are personal and do not in any way represent those of Times Network.