Govt sets up green war room to combat air pollution 24X7

The Delhi government on Monday restarted its 24x7 ‘Green War Room’ to ensure effective implementation of its 21-point Winter Action Plan. The war room was launched in 2020 at the Secretariat for better inter-departmental coordination and round-the-clock monitoring of air pollution, which spikes in the national capital and adjoining areas every winter due to multiple reasons, including slow wind speed, stubble burning, and bursting of firecrackers.

Environment Minister Gopal Rai said this year, data collected through drones, real-time source apportionment study data, and satellite data on the smoke produced from stubble burning will be analysed in the war room.

As part of the real-time source apportionment study, data are collected over a period of time, and a model (software) is created to find the sources of air pollution in the city on a real-time basis by using air from the surroundings as input.