Delhi steps up in fight against pollution with inauguration of novel Smog Tower: CM Arvind Kejriwal

New Delhi: A new milestone was met by the Delhi Government in its fight against pollution on Monday as Chief Minister Shri Arvind Kejriwal inaugurated a massive smog tower in the heart of Delhi.

Powered by 40 huge fans and 5000 filters, the tower is India’s first Smog Tower and will tremendously contribute in cleaning the air at public spaces.

CM Arvind Kejriwal informed that the tower has been built with American Technology and experts will closely study the performance of the tower so that similar towers can be built in Delhi. He stressed upon the fact that Delhi Government’s efforts have made PM 2.5 and PM 10 levels have consistently go down in Delhi. Environment Minister Shri Gopal Rai said that the Delhi Government is committed in its fight against pollution and the Smog Tower will be of great benefit in this fight.

The tower has been established at Baba Kharak Singh Marg near Connaught Place and is estimated to clean 1000 cubic metres of air per second. This Smog Tower is estimated to be a huge relief for the area which sees high traffic throughout the day.

Chief Minister Shri Arvind Kejriwal said, “A massive development is taking place in Delhi Government’s fight against corruption with the inauguration of this Smog Tower. Supported by technology never seen before in India, this Smog Tower is the first of its kind in the country. The technology for this ambitious project was brought from America.

The tower is 24 metre high and will take in air from a radius of 1 kilometre, which it will clean and then give back fresh, clean air to the area. The tower has a capacity of cleaning 1000 cubic metres of air per second. It is estimated that the area will see a rapid change in the quality of air because of the establishment of this tower.”

“This tower has been established as a pilot project and detailed studies will be conducted on its performance. IIT Delhi and IIT Bombay will analyse all the data and submit a report on the effectiveness of the Smog Tower. Once satisfactory results are received about the tower’s effectiveness, then the model will be replicated and smog towers will be established all over Delhi. Tata Projects executed Smog Tower’s establishment while NBCC provided project consultancy and IIT Delhi and IIT Bombay supervised its technicalities. The Delhi Government got this Smog Tower made for the people of Delhi and I want to congratulate them on the progress we all have made in the fight against pollution,” he said.  

“After tremendous efforts of Delhi Government, the city average of PM 10 has come down consistently from 324 ppm in 2014 to 187 ppm in 2021, while PM 2.5 has come down from 149 ppm in 2014 to 101 ppm in 2021. Delhi Government and the people of Delhi have together made incessant efforts in this fight. I am certain that this Smog Tower will be a path-breaking milestone in the fight against pollution. We are all very excited to see the results of the performance of this project. The data analysis will begin immediately and we’ll get a detailed performance report within 2 years after the performance is studied very closely by experts. In the meanwhile, we’ll get monthly trends to analyse how successful the tower is turning out to be,” the CM said.  

The Chief Minister also took to Twitter to share this information and said, “Congratulations Delhi. In the war against pollution, the country's first smog tower has been established in Delhi. This smog tower has been made with American technology and will reduce the amount of pollution in the air. The project has been started on a pilot basis and will be replicated once the performance is found to be efficient.”

Environment Minister Shri Gopal Rai said, “Once the monsoon season is over the tower will function on full capacity and then IIT Delhi and IIT Bombay’s experts will start their research on its performance. The Delhi Government is committed in its fight against pollution and this tower will deeply aid this fight and act as a technological foundation for our future projects.”

Main Features of the Smog Tower

The main features of this innovative outdoor air cleaning system(Smog Tower) are that it is based on a downdraft airflow model in which 40 huge fans shall induct air from the top of a special type of canopy structure at the height of about 24 meters and release clean air of the tune of 1000 metre cube per second filtered through novel geometry filters of 2 layers. The area of influence is expected to be about 1 km radius around the tower. The 24-metre high tower is powered by 40 fans and 5000 filters.