Information on Delhi’s spiking pollution levels ‘irregular’

Information on air quality was not updated for Mandir Marg, R K Puram and Punjabi Bagh at 8 pm Thursday, though this time lag didn’t stretch across months; the data on pollutants had been recorded 9 pm Wednesday, nearly 24 hours ago. The other stations were updated to Thursday’s data at 8 pm. While NSIT Dwarka, Income Tax Office, and IHBAS reported data from 7 pm, at Shadipur, the data was updated till 4 pm Thursday. For some stations on certain days, data on pollutant levels was missing. While the website had no data on PM 10 and PM 2.5 levels in Anand Vihar for December 23, the AQI in the area was still somehow in the ‘severe’ range.

Six of these nine stations that don’t have updated information on pollutant levels are managed by the Delhi government’s Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC). The DPCC website, however, seemed to have updated information for most of these stations. Civil Lines was the only station which did not have updated data on the DPCC website Thursday evening. For IGI airport, only data on particulates was not updated on the DPCC website.

Meanwhile, CPCB officials said that the information on the website had not been updated due to “technical snags”. “We believe that correct data is the property of citizens and we are working for them,” said Dr Dipankar Saha, head of CPCB’s air quality lab. However, he could not give a definite deadline about when the data would be updated.

DPCC authorities, on the other hand, denied that there were any “consistent problems” with their air quality data gathering mechanism.

Chairperson of DPCC and Delhi Environment Secretary Ashwani Kumar said only two stations had “minor problems.” “… Data on Civil Lines and Dwarka are irregular. This is due to a human error which we are trying to correct,” he said.