Delhi Gets First-Of-Its-Kind Smog Tower So That We All Can Start Breathing Some Good Air

Over the years, Delhi, which has been battling to control the toxic air quality, has experimented with several things with limited to no success.

This includes the car rationing odd-even scheme, construction ban, crackers ban, sprinkling water from the sky, among other things.

However, none of them have been able to provide long-term relief for Delhiites from breathing the most toxic air in the world.

But, we may finally have a solution. The first-ever ‘smog tower’ has become operational in Delhi's Lajpat Nagar Central Market on Friday.?

The 20-ft-tall smog tower has been installed by the Traders Association Lajpat Nagar (TALN) with the help of east Delhi MP Gautam Gambhir in the market which sees an average footfall of nearly 15,000 people every day.

According to reports, the purifier has the capacity to treat 250,000-600,000 cubic metres of air per day and release fresh air in return.

The cricketer-turned-politician said, "This air purifier is a prototype. We will analyse its performance and then install several purifiers across the constituency. Every step in the direction of making Delhi pollution free saves lives."

The smog tower in Lajpat Nagar is built on the lines of China, which installed the largest smog tower measuring over 328 ft high at Xian.

The air pollution levels have been in an alarming stage in the city as in last 48 hours the air quality has remained in the ‘severe’ category. However, Delhi’s air quality showed an improvement on Friday morning. According to the Air Quality Index (AQI) data, major pollutants PM2.5 was 302 in ‘very poor’ category and PM 10 was at 283 in ‘poor category’ in Lodhi Road area.

Earlier, in November the Supreme Court had stepped in after the AQI touched 999 asked the Centre and the Delhi government to come up with a road map on installing smog towers in the national capital region (NCR) to combat air pollution.?

In December, the Supreme Court had given three months to the Centre and the Delhi government to set up a 'smog tower' pilot project at Connaught Place in Delhi, to address the menace of air pollution.

The SC bench of Justice Arun Mishra and Justice Deepak Gupta refused to provide the August-September 2020 time sought by the Delhi and Central government to install the towers saying that we don't want to waste one more year and asked the authorities concerned, to sum up, the budgetary allocation for such technology.