Side effect of Janta Curfew: Air quality improved dramatically in Delhi & NCR, finds ACAPC study
GURUGRAM: A study has found that the air quality improved dramatically in Delhi and NCR towns on the day of Janta Curfew on March 22 following a drastic reduction in the Air Quality Parameters, Gaseous Particles, and Volatile Organic Compound almost by half.
A team of Amity Center for Air Pollution Control (ACAPC) headed by Prof. PCS Devara and Dr. Sanjeev Agrawal, that carried out a detailed study of the impact of nationwide Janta Curfew noted that Air Quality Parameters such as PM10, PM2.5, PM1 and Gaseous particles of NO2, SO2 CO & OZONE as well as Volatile Organic Compound VOC/BTX such as Benzene, Toulene, Xylene and NH3 reduced by 50%.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had given a nation-wide call to the people of India to remain confined in their houses to help check the spread of Novel Coronavirus, officially known as COVID-19. Resultantly, the people responded positively and there was almost no movement of human beings on the roads and vehicular traffic had drastically reduced to almost zero levels.
The Amity ACAPC team looked at 24 hourly averages of ambient Air Quality from the averaged quality monitors from CPCB monitoring stations in and around Delhi & NCR.
It revealed that PM10, PM2.5, NO2, SO2 CO, OZONE, had measured 98, 62, 23, 13, 08, 40 µg/m3 (Except CO-mg/m3) respectively and VOC/BTX – Benzene, Toulene, Xylene, and NH3 measured 10, 18, 25 and 11 µg/m3 respectively almost 50% that of the levels on 21st March.
Amity University Haryana AUH has a highly sophisticated Air Quality Monitoring Station at its campus at Pachgaon, Manesar that itself looks at the Air Pollution parameters at the doorsteps of the millennium city of Gurugram.
AUH further has the NASA Aeronet Monitor that looks at ultrafine aerosol particles and their concentration in air. These particles can travel great distances, even across continent weather currents.
“It is important to keep the ambient Air Quality in healthy conditions during the Coronavirus crisis as the respiratory diseases and heart strokes are greatly impacted by degraded Air Quality,” says Prof PB Sharma, Vice-Chancellor, Amity University Haryana.
The safe limit for Air Quality as per the WHO is to keep the particulate matter PM2.5 below 20mg/m3 while India during most of the time of the year records PM 2.5 higher than 100mg/m3 which is 5 times higher than the global safe limit.
The nationwide Janta Curfew undoubtedly brought the particulate matter such as PM2.5 to 62 mg/m3.
It may be mentioned that Air Pollution has been found to harm human beings from head to toe. The ultrafine particles of particulate matter and Volatile Organic Compounds such as Benzene and ammonia pass through the lungs and are carried into the bloodstream to expose virtually to all cells in the body.
As per the WHO report an estimated 7 million deaths worldwide are associated with Air Pollution and this cause of mortality due to Air Pollution accounts for 11.6% of all global deaths.
WHO further recognizes that Air Pollution is a critical risk factor for non-communicable diseases (NCDs), causing an estimated one quarter (24%) of all adult deaths from heart disease, 25% from stroke, 43% from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and 29% from lung cancer.
