Pollution body starts monitoring metals in Delhi’s air

The Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) began monitoring concentration of harmful metals, including barium, iron and aluminium, in the air from Thursday.

This monitoring would be carried out for 15 days to check how levels of such metals shoot up during the post-Diwali period.

The concentration of some of these toxic metals such as barium has been found to shoot up by at least nine times above the safe standards a day after Diwali. The roads are covered with a white layer of aluminium dust.

“Exposure to high levels of aluminium and barium fumes can aggravate cardiac and respiratory ailments such as asthma and COPD. Aluminium dust can trigger dermatitis too,” said Nawal K Vikram, professor of medicine, AIIMS.

“This is for the first time that concentration of metals is being monitored by DPCC and that too for a period of 15 days. Earlier, only common pollutants such as particulate matter, sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and carbon monoxide among others were measured,” said a DPCC scientist.