Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday inaugurated India’s first smog tower at Connaught Place. The smog tower will significantly reduce air pollution levels.

Kejriwal said experts will study the performance of the tower so that similar towers can be set up in Delhi.

The smog tower is powered by 40 huge fans and 5,000 filters and cleans 1,000 cubic metres of air per second.

 “The tower is 24 metre-high and will take in air from a radius of one kilometre, which it will clean and then give back fresh, clean air to the area. It has a capacity of cleaning 1,000 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,” the CM said.

According to Delhi Government officials, IIT Delhi and IIT Bombay will analyse all the data and submit a report on the effectiveness of the Smog Tower. “Tata Projects executed the 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. 

“The 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,” Kejriwal said.

“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,” he added.

Kejriwal tweeted, “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 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.”