Lack of transparency on pollution sources may impact clean air fight

The three data streams that could estimate and project what is polluting Delhi's air on a particular day have been offline or put out of reach for the public, leaving the city virtually blindfolded in its battle against bad air with the worst just around the corner, according to several experts.

- Jasjeev Gandhiok

The Capital has typically relied on the Decision System Support (DSS), the System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research (Safar), and the Real-Time Advanced Air Source Management Network (R-Aasman) for a sense of which the main sources were or whether they could worsen the air quality.

The DSS last shared an update on Sunday, and has been put behind a login page since Tuesday; Safar's website last gave an estimate of how much farm fires were a factor in air pollution on October 13; and R-Aasman has not been updated since last week -- blocking what experts said was crucial information.

DSS and Safar are products of collaborations between the Union ministry of earth sciences (MOES) and Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, and R-Aasman involves the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) and two Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) colleges.

None of the organisations involved responded to requests for comments on the lack of updates, although the R-Aasman is now at the centre of a political fight, with the Aam Aadmi Party government accusing the bureaucracy that reports to the Union government of not releasing the funds required to keep it running.

Mrutyunjay Mohapatra, director general of IMD and named as an advisory member on the DSS website, said he was not aware of why data was no longer being shared. "This only IITM would be able to share," he said.