The car-free day on Thursday has brought a dramatic overthrow of the exposure levels to particulate pollution on the stretch from Red Fort to India Gate, found the monitoring practice by Centre for Science and Environment (CSE).
The percentage of pollution level CSE found a day before the car-free day at the same time, the level of the particulate pollution dripped down with a large percentage on the day of the event. Pollution levels were 60 per cent lower, monitored CSE.
To back the figure found by CSE, Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) by its city-wide official ambient monitoring disclosed the overall drop of 45 per cent in PM2.5 level in the city. As per CSE, the PM10 level was as high as 750 microgram per cubic meter (cum) and the PM2.5 level was 689 microgram per cum on the high-traffic day of Wednesday and it showed a figurative drop of 59 percent and 62 percent of the respective pollution level exposure on the car-free day.
Explaining the ineludible role of the proliferated cars on road, CSE executive director (research and advocacy) Anumita Roy Chowdhury said, “This initiative of the Delhi Government has only helped to prove how the growing car numbers in Delhi aggravate toxic pollution. If these numbers are controlled, pollution can be lowered significantly. Though this event, for public awareness, has been planned for one road-stretch a day every month, it needs simultaneous action to restrain car usage on a daily basis for the real change.”
Chowdhary suggested to adapt the initiative by one and all otherwise, she said, this will get reduced to only a ‘symbolic gesture.’
The car-free day, as CSE mentioned, but also foreshadowed the winter pollution crisis, where it noted down that in the early morning the hourly average of PM2.5 level was 384 microgram per cum but as soon as it approached the noon it dropped to 148 microgram per cum - as much as 61 per cent drop. Putting it as a suggestion, CSE had put forward the need of urgent winter pollution action plan so as to ensure Delhi does not see a repeat of the alarming winter pollution like the last year.
Official monitoring also show higher pollution in the morning hours than in the noon. CSE has also analysed the DPCC ambient air pollution data of the mornings of October 21 and October 22 for four monitoring locations — Mandir Marg, Punjabi Bagh, RK Puram and Anand Vihar.