Bhubaneswar, Sept. 17: You will be able to “see” the pollutants you’re breathing in with just one look at a display board.

The Odisha State Pollution Control Board plans to set up two large electronic display boards at strategic points in the city so that people know about the amount of pollution in the surrounding air.

Officials of the board said they had tentatively zoned in on two spots in the city — Power House Square, where there was a display board earlier, and the board’s head office at Nayapalli.

The boards will display the amount of pollutants in the air in different parts of the city. “Each board will cost around Rs 10 lakh. As the two boards will cost us more than Rs 20 lakh, which is bit steep for us, we will a little time to arrange for it,” said senior scientist B.N. Bhol. He said the maintenance of the boards would also cost around Rs 2 lakh a year.

Pollution board officials collect air samples from different places twice a week and test them to check availability and quantity of common pollution causing agents such as suspended particulate matters, respirable suspended particulate matters, sulphur dioxide and oxides of nitrogen.

Earlier, the officials used to collect the samples from three places in the city — the state pollution control board head office at Nayapalli, IRC Village and Capital Police station at the centre of the city. But since last year, the collection areas were increased from three to five with the addition of Palasuni and Patrapada on two extreme ends of the city on NH-5.

“The pollutants and the quantity present in the air collected from these places will be mentioned on the board. As the air samples are collected twice every week, people will be aware of the air quality of the areas,” said an official.

The board official said there Bhubaneswar’s air quality was not alarming. But the amount of SPM and RSPM were always on the higher side due to construction activities and increasing vehicular traffic.

Bhubaneswar’s air quality is better than that in other cities in the country. Though there have been lot of construction activities going on in and around the city, only suspended particulate matters such as dust and vapours have increased but not sulphur dioxide and nitrogenous oxides, said one scientist.

“We issue guidelines to government bodies and construction companies to check their pollution levels. Besides, for construction of high-rises, promoters have to seek no-objection certificate from us. We take steps to create awareness about pollution and to keep it in check,” said Bhol.