Bengaluru: With good air to breathe in Uttar Pradesh and other parts of North India becoming a luxury, the Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board has gone the extra mile to ensure people get good air to breathe.  

It has begun the process of setting up 18 new Continuous Ambient Air Quality Monitoring Stations (CAAQMS) in eight cities of the state.

Where will these CAAQMS be set up? 

Five of these air quality monitoring stations will come up in Agra, one each in Mathura and Firozabad, two each in Lucknow and Kanpur besides three each in Varanasi and Prayagraj. One station will also be set up in Gorakhpur, notes a popular website. 

It is also interesting to note that the state already has 25 such stations in the state.

The website quoted UPPCB regional officer (Prayagraj) Pradeep Kumar Vishwakarma, saying that, at present, the state has 25 Continuous Ambient Air Quality Monitoring Stations in 13 cities, including four each in Ghaziabad, Lucknow and Noida, three in Meerut, two in Greater Noida, besides one each in Agra, Baghpat, Bulandshahr, Hapur, Kanpur, Moradabad, Muzaffarnagar and Varanasi.

All 18 new air quality monitoring stations would be set up on land provided by the UPPCB. Five of them would come up with funds provided by the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change and 10 from funds provided by the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP).

Stubble burning in Punjab, Delhi, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh has led to massive rise in air pollution levels. 

It is interesting to note that Unnao’s district administration has come up with a unique plan to combat the stubble-burning issue. 

 

It has begun procuring stubble from farmers and in return, is giving them cow dung. 

The procured stubble will be used as fodder. As regards the proportion, every two trolleys of stubble will get one trolley of cow dung.