As the World Health Organisation (WHO) rated Delhi of having the highest level of air pollution, India’s air monitoring centre on Thursday dismissed the data released by the WHO calling the finding ‘biased’ and ‘misleading’. The Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) went on the defensive regarding the high suspended pollutant levels and put it on India’s geographical location calling it a dust-prone region.
“It is important that while carrying out such a survey, all kinds of environment should be included to come to a final conclusion. From 2011 till the present date, our data suggests that a yearly average of PM2.5 in the national Capital is 110 micrograms per cubic metres. The report by WHO has put the figure in the same category at a staggering 153 mg/m3,” said Gufran Beig, chief project scientist at System of Air quality weather Forecasting And Research (SAFAR).
Various experts in the State-owned monitoring centres have claimed that the data collected for various cities across the globe were taken during different time frames because of which the findings have shown such ‘drastic variations’. Acknowledging the high concentration of dust in the city, the DPCC said it is not only the city to be blamed, but also the geographical location of the country. “The Indo-Gangetic area is bound to have high concentration of dust. The geographical region and the terrain is also very important which is why Pakistan, Afghanistan and others fall among the highly polluted places,” said a DPCC official, adding that the WHO’s report did not aim to rank cities which is why Delhi cannot be called the dirtiest.
“The WHO used data for New Delhi from 2010 to 2013 from five monitoring stations in residential and other areas. We are now studying the data for 2011-14 which we have procured from the US Embassy in Beijing. This will help us arrive at a more accurate comparison,” Beig said.