Union Minister for Environment, Forest & Climate Change, Bhupender Yadav, virtually inaugurated the first functional smog tower of India on September 7, 2021.

• Smog tower was launched at Anand Vihar in Delhi.
• Now, ministry would keep a close eye on the results to determine if India need more of such projects in the future.

A smog tower is a structure that are designed as a large or medium scale air purifier. It helps in reducing air pollution by forcing the air through filters.

The smog tower at Anand Vihar is having the height of over 20 metres. It is of downdraft type in which polluted air will come in from top of the tower and clean air will come out from bottom. This filter was installed to reduce the localised particulate matter.

Filtration system used in the smog tower has been designed by University of Minnesota. It has an expected efficiency of 90 per cent.

Forty fan units have been installed in the tower in order to provide a design airflow rate of 1,000 m3/sec.

Smog tower has been built by Tata Projects Limited in collaboration with the NBCC (India) Ltd as project management consultant.

Ministry has stepped up its activities to achieve clear air in light of COP26 in Glasgow which is scheduled in 2021. According to minister, Rs 375.44 crore has been released to 114 cities in the financial year 2019-20 and 2020-21 for take actions under city action plan. Rs 4,400 core has been released to 42 cities having million plus population for 2020-21 as 15th Finance Commission report had recommended.