GURGAON: Ahead of winter, when the region witnesses a spike in pollution levels, both NCR cities in Haryana — Gurgaon and Faridabad — are going to get new monitoring stations to track the air quality index (AQI), environment and climate conditions.
According to GMDA officials, installation of five monitoring stations in Gurgaon and three in Faridabad is on track and will be completed by October end. These stations will measure meteorological parameters, which would include gauging of wind direction, wind speed, ambient temperature, rainfall, relative humidity, solar radiation and atmospheric pressure. Air quality parameters would also be monitored via the system, which will detect the presence of various harmful gases in the environment apart from PM2.5, PM10 and noise pollution levels.
In Gurgaon, monitoring stations will be installed at Sultanpur Lake, Udyog Vihar Industrial Area, the Sector 6 Old Age Home, Government Senior Secondary School in Badshapur and Government Polytechnic College, Manesar.
In Faridabad, these monitoring stations will be installed at Badkhal Lake, HSIIDC office and Raj Hans Hotel in Surajkund.
Conceptualised in 2021, GMDA was earlier planning to install 24 automatic weather stations across the city but later decided to set up rain gauges and AQI monitoring stations too to develop high-resolution weather forecast and warning services. This is a joint initiative by the India Meteorological Department (IMD) and GMDA, and will cost the development authority around Rs 8.8 crore.
“The installation of the environment and climate monitoring systems will not only deliver actual real-time data of our environmental conditions, but also provide an analysis on the major elements contributing towards air pollution. This will support us in taking remedial action to address the issue and curb further deterioration of air quality,” said PC Meena, the GMDA chief executive officer.
The real-time data of these monitoring stations will be linked with GMDA’s integrated command and control centre as well as IMD. “
At present, the city has two automatic weather stations located near Shikohpur and Gwalpahari and a part-time observatory at Sohna Road, which is defunct. It has five AQI monitoring stations.
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