The eastern zonal bench of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) has expressed dissatisfaction over the fact that Bengal pollution control board runs only 12 continuous ambient air quality monitoring stations in greater Kolkata.
The board has been asked to respond within two weeks.
Although the direction was passed on February 8, the order could only be accessed on Saturday, February 10.
The bench lodged the case suo motu based on news reports where environmentalist S.M. Ghosh complained that the city had fewer continuous pollution measuring stations, compared with cities like Delhi and Mumbai.
With the highest pollution load among metros, Delhi has 39 such monitoring stations. Mumbai has 21.
“It (the state pollution control board) has stated that the Kolkata (Calcutta) Urban Agglomeration comprising of Barrackpore, Howrah
and Kolkata (Calcutta) has a population of 1,40,35,949 as per 2011 census (and) required to have a minimum of 16 monitoring stations, a combination of 12 continuous ambient air quality monitoring stations and four manual stations,” said the bench of Justice B. Amit Sthalekar and expert member Arun Kumar Verma.
“We are not satisfied… because this affidavit seems to have stuck with the census of 2011,” the bench said, adding that the green board “must have a more visionary
approach”.
“We have 11 automatic stations running now and another two will be added soon,” said a senior PCB official.
He said: “There is a dearth of space to put up more stations”.
