The smog tower in Delhi has been set up as a pilot project. (Twitter/AAP) Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday inaugurated India’s first smog tower in Delhi’s Connaught Place that will purify 1,000 cubic metres of air per second within a radius of around 1 km.
Kejriwal said the tower has been set up as a pilot project and initial trends will be available within a month. If the pilot project is successful, more smog towers will be installed in the national capital. “Smog towers can be raised in other parts of the city as well if a pilot study conducted on the new one set up at Connaught place provides favourable results,” Kejriwal said during the inauguration.
The tower, located behind the Shivaji Stadium metro station in Connaught Place, was raised at a height of 24.2 metres. The total project cost, including two years of operational cost, is around Rs. 20 crore, according to a senior official of the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC). The DPCC is the nodal agency for the tower.
The tower constitutes a pilot study to assess the reduction of particulate air pollution in urban areas through ‘air cleaning.’ The two-year-long pilot study will be carried out by IIT Delhi and IIT Bombay. The two institutions are technical advisors for the project.
A total of 40 fans have been installed at the bottom of the tower. Air will be sucked in from the top of the tower, filtered and released through the fans at the bottom. Trends from the pilot study could be available in around a month, Kejriwal added.
- The Indian Express website has been rated GREEN for its credibility and trustworthiness by Newsguard, a global service that rates news sources for their journalistic standards.
