Bhubaneswar, Sept. 15: Odisha State Pollution Control Board has launched an online system for monitoring the air quality around industries.

The system has been introduced at Paradeep Phosphates Limited in Paradip, Jindal Steel Power Limited in Barbil, Tata Sponge Iron Limited in Joda, Odisha Cement Limited in Rajgangpur and Hindalco Industries Limited in Hirakud. The board has directed 23 other industries in the state to adopt the technology by December.

The system, which not only measures air pollutants in emission from chimneys but also the quality of air around the industry, was launched by minister for forest and environment Bijayshree Routray on the occasion of the board’s 29th foundation day. “This will ensure 24-hour surveillance on the pollution status of industries electronically and make the whole process transparent. The industries have been asked to install digital displays board at the gate and other prominent places to display the data,” said the board’s member secretary Siddhant Das.

The online monitoring system includes surveillance on emission from chimneys called stack monitoring, and ambient air quality, which means the emission level of the surroundings.

While 20 industries have already installed both the online stack and ambient air quality equipment, eight have installed just the stack system.

Once installed, board officials can access real time emission level of the industries through general pocket radio service (GPRS). The new technology has been designed and supplied by an Australian company.

The board had earlier constituted a committee, which had recommended the use of GPRS to receive the online data from all monitoring stations. The board claimed that it was the first in the country to adopt the GPRS-based technology to capture the online environmental monitoring data on a real-time basis.

To prevent the online data from being fudged, the board has also introduced a “Y” cable concept, which would capture the data from the analyser before it goes to the plants computer. “Online data through Y cable will reach the board first through GPRS before it reaches to the plant and so there is no scope for delay and manipulation,” said senior environmental engineer of the board A.K. Swar.

Earlier the board used to monitor the ambient air quality by high volume speakers and stack monitoring was done by stack-monitoring kits. However, these devices are semi automatic in nature and cannot generate monitoring data automatically and transmit it online.