More air quality check stations mooted for city

First bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice R Mahadevan issued the direction while dealing with a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) moved by Y. Akbar Ahmed, a social activist, which sought for a direction to TNPCB to not confine itself to the present eight places in the city and instead, extend it to other areas as well. The bench in its order held, “We are of the view that the authorities may examine the feasibility of setting up more of such monitoring stations keeping in mind the different areas covered by the Chennai City and communicate the decision to the petitioner within 3 months.” The petitioner had also submitted that the pollution level in respect of environment, smoke, dust and garbage was very severe in the city mainly owing to the negligence and lack of proper  pollution watch and surveillance by TNPCB. 

He also noted that as of now, TNPCB is operating such air quality monitoring stations only at Kathivakkam, Manali, Tiruvottiyur, Kilpauk, Thiagaraya Nagar, Vallalar Nagar, Anna Nagar and Adyar and this has to be extended to areas like Triplicane, Anna Salai, Mylapore, Guindy and Pallavaram. It may be noted that the ambient air quality data collected from the eight places revealed that parameters such as sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide are found to be well controlled in Chennai including the industrial area. But the average values of ‘Respirable Suspended Particulates’ levels exceeded the standard in Chennai at Kilpauk, Thiyagarayanagar and Anna Nagar.