BMC to procure 5 handheld air quality monitoring devices

“While the court has called for all construction sites to install their own monitoring sensors, it is also necessary that our engineers have their own monitoring mechanisms to ensure that the air quality levels are not breaching the normals. At a time when we are trying to implement several projects to mitigate air pollution, maintaining data of harmful gases and pollutants is very crucial. Therefore, we are planning to obtain five handheld monitoring devices which will monitor the PM 2.5, PM 10 levels as well as other indicators and calculate the overall AQI in and around construction sites,” a senior official told The Indian Express.

Currently, the city is home to nearly 25 monitoring stations of which 11 are operated by the MPCB, nine controlled by the SAFAR, while five are run by the BMC. Furthermore, the civic body has also rolled out plans to install five more new Continuous Ambient Air Quality Monitoring Stations (CAAQMS).

According to officials, the data from these hand-held monitoring devices will be used by civic engineers and officials in addition to the data from installed stations.

“Unlike the CAAQMS, which are quite big and require a lot of space, the new handheld devices are compact and can be transported easily wherever a need arises,” an official said, adding, “Besides checking the pollution levels around construction sites, our engineers can also use these machines wherever a need is felt. For instance if the reading on the stations is quite high or if we receive complaints of foul smell etc.”

Recently, BMC’s environment and climate change department floated a tender for the procurement of outdoor mobile ambient air quality monitoring devices. Estimated a cost of Rs 5 lakh each, these units will be equipped to monitor parameters of PM 2.5, PM 10, Sulphur Dioxide (SO2), Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2), Hydrogen Sulphide (H2S), Carbon Monoxide (CO), Methane (CH4), Total Volatile Organic Compounds (TVOC) as well as temperature, humidity and the moisture index.

“With the machines being expensive, we are planning to acquire only five machines in the pilot project. Once pressed into operations, we will observe their utility amongst our engineers and accuracy. If we observe positive trends, we will purchase more such hand-held monitoring devices in the future,” said an official.

For the record, earlier this month, the civic body has also instructed the developers to install approved sensor-based AQI monitoring stations at the construction within a period of 30 days. The instructions have been issued in line with the technologies from 15 companies which were shortlisted by the civic body, after an Expression of Interest (EOI) inviting units for particulate matters was floated in February.

“Even though our 27-point guideline for air pollution mitigation maintains that all construction sites must install stations to monitor air quality levels at site, we found that presently, only 10 percent of the construction sites were following the directives. However, in these cases, it was observed that the readings from the machines were not reliable. Therefore, we had floated an EOI to streamline and standardise the type and quality of machines in a bid to ensure accurate AQI. Having now finalised technologies from 15 companies, we have informed all construction sites to install these monitoring stations,” said a senior civic official.