The Hindu : New Delhi News : Emission data not filtered

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, May 16, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

Emission data not filtered

By Anjali Dhal Samanta

NEW DELHI, MAY 15. Even as pollution remains a major concern for the Capital, Pollution Control Centres across the city don't seem to be taking the issue seriously. Not satisfied with the maintenance, operation and calibration of instruments at various PCCs across the Capital, the Central Pollution Control Board has sent a letter to the Delhi State Transport Authority, asking them to take "necessary action'' at their end.

An inspection of 37 PCCs - all authorised by the Directorate of Transport - by a team from CPCB in January revealed that the calibration with gas cylinder, which should be done frequently in order to gauge the correct value of emissions, is not being checked regularly. The team also discovered that at many places the filters used for checking the emission level were dirty.

Though, in most places PCCs do keep spare filters, they were not changed regularly because of the cost. The sampling probe, which is used to check the level of emissions, was found dirty and choked at some PCCs.

"Calibration should be done at least once in 15 days or after checking the pollution for a certain number of cars. This is important to maintain the quality and get the right level of emissions. But we found that in some places calibration is done once a year. In fact, in some PCCs, the staff was not even aware about the importance of gas calibration. This way, the right level of emissions cannot be determined. As for the filters, if they are not cleaned regularly, they get choked and then the correct value would not be noted,'' said a CPCB official.

Yet another cause for concern was the use of generators during power failure which causes fluctuations in results, leading to displaying unstable values of emission levels.

The CPCB in a letter to the Delhi State Transport Authority last month had recommended a properly trained staff to operate the monitoring stations. They have also suggested that training courses should be organised for the operators in order to improve their performance. Stressing the need for gas calibration, the inspection team has recommended that inspectors from the Department of Transport should keep a check on the same.

Finally, the team has noted that monitoring of carbon monoxide alone is not an effective way to measure the exhaust emissions, but monitoring of hydro carbon is also important. "Any change in air, fuel ratio changes the levels of carbon monoxide besides having an impact on others pollutants like hydrocarbon. Therefore, we have suggested that checking of hydrocarbons must also be considered,'' said an official.

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