City’s new 13 air quality monitoring stns bring extra 17L people in grid

New Delhi: The 13 newly operational continuous ambient air quality monitoring stations (CAAQMS) in Delhi have brought an additional 17 lakh people within the estimated 2km coverage radius of a monitoring station, taking the total population covered to around 1.1 crore, according to a new analysis by Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA).

However, around half of Delhi’s population — 51%, or roughly 1.2 crore people — is still outside this estimated coverage radius.

At 60, Delhi has the highest number of continuous ambient air quality monitoring stations (CAAQMS) in the country. CREA’s analysis covers 59 monitoring stations, because New Moti Bagh is currently not operational.

The analysis estimates Delhi’s total population at around 2.3 crore, based on a 2026 worldpop gridded population dataset. The 46 old stations cover an estimated 95 lakh people, equivalent to 41.5% of the city’s population, within their combined 2km coverage areas,” states the analysis.

However, even with all 59 stations, around half of Delhi’s population would remain outside the defined 2km coverage areas,” said CREA. It added that the additional 17 lakh people represent the population newly covered after accounting for overlap between the coverage areas of old and new stations.