Apex court curbs cut air pollution in Bengaluru

BENGALURU: It appears that the Supreme Court directive limiting bursting of crackers to two hours in metropolitan cities, including Bengaluru, has helped in bringing down pollution and noise levels across the city.

The Continuous Ambient Air Quality Monitoring Stations (CAAQMS) installed by the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB) to monitor the ambient air quality has shown that the pollution level in many areas during the three-day Diwali festival from November 6 fell in ‘satisfactory’ category.

As per the data issued by the KSPCB, there is a tremendous improvement both in air quality as well as noise level, when compared with corresponding three days of Diwali celebrations last year. The KSPCB has installed seven air monitoring stations at seven different locations and the readings were as follows – City Railway Station (117), S.G. Halli (Basaveshwaranagar) (56), Veterinary Hospital (Hebbal) (70.4), Jayanagar 5th Block (85.6), Kavika (Mysore road) (75.3), Nimhans (55.2) and Central Silk Board (55.3).

With the range of 0 to above 401 Jayanagar CAAQMS has registered poor with a recording of 232 air quality index on November 7, the second day of Diwali. All the stations have recorded ‘satisfactory’ to ‘moderate’ air quality index.

Except Basaveshwarnagar and Jayanagar all the stations have recorded ‘satisfactory’ air quality index on November 6, the first day. On second day, only Basaveshwaranagar has ‘satisfactory’ air quality, while others had registered ‘moderate’ and ‘poor’. 

Overall, for three days Diwali celebrations three stations have recorded ‘satisfactory’, while four stations had ‘moderate’. However, not a single monitoring station has recorded ‘very poor’ or ‘severe’ level of pollution.

The KSPCB has recorded air quality prior to the festival between October 31 and November 5 and it has recorded satisfactory.