Continuous Ambient Air Quality Monitoring station inaugurated in Silchar

Cachar, Feb 25: A Continuous Ambient Air Quality Monitoring Station (CAAQMS) was recently inaugurated in Silchar.

Member of Parliament from Silchar Dr Rajdeep Roy inaugurated the CAAQMS alongside Silchar MLA Dipayan Chakraborty, Deputy Commissioner Rohan Kumar Jha, Dr Arup Mishra, the chairman of Pollution Control Board, Assam (PCBA), Dr Shantanu Kumar Dutta, secretary PCBA and Manjul Dev, chairman, Silchar Development Authority.

Later in the day, Dr Roy reacted on the development saying “The CAAQMS will help in monitoring and analysing the quality of outdoor air in our surrounding environment on a real-time basis and help in risk management decisions.”

In a release issued to the media, Kalyan Basumatary,Executive Engineer of PCBA,RLO Silchar and Navaneeta Nath, Assistant Executive Environmental Scientist informed that The CAAQMS has been installed in the rooftop of office building of Pollution Control Board Assam in the premises of Silchar Development Authority under the National Clean Air Program (NCAP).

The instrument has been installed at a total cost of Rs1.10 crore and analyses air pollutants such as PM 10, PM 2.5 , SOX , NOX ,NO, NO2, NH3 , Benzene, CO, temperature, Ozone and meteorological data like rainfall, wind direction, humidity, wind speed etc.

As per the air monitoring data available with the Central Pollution Control Board, CPCB in India from 2011 to 2015, numbers of cities were found to be exceeding the ambient air quality standards of CPCB.

A total of 122 cities in the country were identified with higher pollution levels and were termed as “Non Attainment cities.”

Out of 122 cities, five cities in Assam comes under Non – attainment cities which includes Guwahati,Nalbari, Nagaon, Silchar, Sivasagar and the issue was found to be higher than acceptable limit in Silchar.

The release further stated that the National Clean Air Program (NCAP) was launched in 2019 to bring down the Air Pollution levels in these non attainment cities and accordingly activties were taken up by Pollution Control Board Assam.

A number of awareness programs were conducted in the local schools and among the general masses for awareness on non attainment cities, vehicular emission testing and checking of the pollution certificates of the vehicles were done.

Moreover, collaborative programs are also being conducted along with the stake holding departments like Silchar Municipal Board and District Transport Office.