Will Delhi Suffer This Winter As Previous Years ?

If you haven’t been living under a rock, you must be aware that come winters and Delhi becomes the gas chamber as it gets close to impossible to breathe amid the smog and insanely high air pollution.

The Union Environment Ministry held a meeting on Monday with ace institutions incorporating Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) to discuss the new air pollution control methods and preventive measures before the onset of the winters.

The aim of the meeting was the improvement in air quality information and management based on satellite-measurement in the coming three months.

C.K. Mishra, the Environment Secretary, headed the meeting which included experts from the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute, Department of Science and Technology (DST), the India Meteorological Department, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research’s National Physical Laboratory, IIT Delhi, IIT Mumbai, the Bureau of Indian Standards and the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology.

Experts discussed the use of satellite-based Aerosol Optical Depth data for estimating ground-based Particulate Matter (PM2.5) with the diameter less than 2.5 microns in the meeting. The monitoring would aim at early warning system and dissemination protocol to intimate enforcing agencies and public about sporadic high pollution occurrences in beforehand.

In the statement issued by Ministry, it was stated that the meeting discussed the issue of assessment of air pollution mitigation technologies and implementing solutions that are technically feasible on an experimental basis.

It was decided that the DST will lead on technology involvements while National Physical Laboratory will provide certification to the air quality emission monitoring instruments.

This isn’t the first time, however, that a meeting pertaining to air pollution has been held and precautionary steps have been thought to be taken. What would be interesting to see is if the plan would be implemented accordingly and the actions taken would bring desired result or Delhi will succumb to severely high air quality levels, choking Delhiites.