Hyderabad City Air Quality Measurements Up in the Air

The TSPCB, in a press release, said the situation in Hyderabad city, Patancheru, Sangareddy, and Nalgonda had been improving over the past four years, particularly when it came to PM10 (particulate matter) levels.

The TSPCB claim of improvement in PM10 levels – measured in microns with respect to size of the particles (1,000 microns = 1mm) – does not provide the entire picture. The board bases its findings on a network of 28 monitoring stations in different parts of the city of which 12 are automated and the rest are manually operated and checked.

This is far below the number of monitoring stations required for a city the size of Hyderabad. The data gathered from it leaves out large swathes of the city where no monitoring occurs.

“We need these in their hundreds,” a source in the TSPCB said. Incidentally, the area that falls under the GHMC is spread over 650 sq km.

The problem is that decisions on city planning are not taken on basis of air quality. For instance, land prices in heavy air pollution areas should be low but that is not the case in Hyderabad, in areas such as the Financial District and around Gachibowli which are very dusty and where air quality is pretty bad when it comes to particulate matter.

To get an accurate picture of the air quality, monitoring stations are required in all traffic intense areas, residential and commercial areas, and in sensitive areas, the source explained.

Since it is the same network of the 28 air quality monitoring stations that also measure the more dangerous PM2.5 levels in the city, the picture with respect to levels of this extremely fine dust that can stay put in the lungs, and can even enter the blood stream, could be even worse in Hyderabad.

For the record, however, the annual average PM 2.5 levels in the city are said to be around 38 micrograms per cubic metre, against the minimum accepted standard of annual average of 40.