New Delhi: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal inaugurated India's first smog tower in Delhi's Connaught Place on Monday, established with the aim to improve air quality in a radius of around 1 km.
Speaking on the occasion, the Chief Minister 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.
All About Smog Tower
The smog tower will purify 1,000 cubic metres of air per second within a radius of around 1 km and reduce PM 2.5, PM 10 levels in Delhi. A control room has been set up at the site to monitor the operations of the smog tower.
The tower, built at a cost of Rs 20 crore tower, has been funded by the Delhi government. It was approved by the Delhi Cabinet as a pilot project in October last year, but it got delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
A two-year pilot study will be undertaken to ascertain the effectiveness of the smog tower after it becomes operational. The performance and impact of the smog tower will be assessed by experts who will submit a report to the government which will establish similar towers throughout Delhi if the performance is impressive.
Meanwhile, another 25-metre-tall smog tower is being built by the central government at Anand Vihar, which might become operational by the end of August. Both the structures are being built by Tata Projects Limited (TPL) with technical support from IIT-Bombay, which, in collaboration with IIT-Delhi, will validate their performance.
According to reports, both the towers will use 1,200 air filters each developed by experts at the University of Minnesota in the United States. They are estimated to reduce the concentration of PM2.5 up to 70 per cent in a 1 Km radius around them.