With companies showing little interest in tender process initiated by NewDelhi Municipal Council (NDMC) to install “Mist Spraying Cannon” at the four corners of Connaught Place, the plan has failed to take off.
The NDMC had floated the tender of more than Rs 3 crore for the ambitious project with purpose to neutralise the thick blanket of smog that engulfs the national Capital every winter as cool air traps a toxic blend of pollutants, making it difficult for the people to breathe.
A senior NDMC official said the tender was dropped due to fewer participants in the process. “The tender would now be uploaded on Government e-procurement website (GeM) soon,” he said. GeM is the National Public Procurement Portal that facilitates online procurement of common use goods.
The move was conceptualised to curtail air pollution during the winter this year but due to fewer participants the concept has not been come on the ground this year, he said. The official further said that the civic body is putting all the efforts to introduce it as soon as possible.
The smog fighting machine commonly referred as “Mist Spraying Cannon” spray tiny droplets of water up to a height of 100 metres thus creating an artificial mist to which air-borne pollutants would stick and subsequently grounded. The tiny droplets fired by the machine are the same as particles of PM2.5 and PM10. It combines with the dust and fine particles and takes it down to the ground.
In a similar exercise to reduce air pollution, the Delhi Government had also sprayed water from an “anti-smog gun” to see whether it could make any impact in reducing pollutants from the air. The anti-smog gun put on trial by the city Government could spray atomised water (tiny droplets of water) up to a height of 50 metres, at the highly-polluted Anand Vihar area in December last year after pollution levels in the national Capital went in the severe category during winters.