Smog tower at Anand Vihar missed deadline due to lockdown, will be ready by Aug 31: Officials

The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has sought three more months to complete the construction of a smog tower at Anand Vihar here, officials said. Though the agencies had sought special permission to continue the construction work during the lockdown, the restriction on the movement of manpower and material led to some delay, a senior CPCB official said.

"We have sought three more months to complete the work. The smog tower will be ready by August 31," he said.



The Supreme Court had earlier allowed time till June 4 to complete the construction of the 25-metre-high structure.

Another smog tower is coming up at Baba Kharak Singh Marg, Connaught Place.

Last week, Delhi Environment Minister Gopal Rai had said the second wave of COVID-19 delayed the construction of the smog tower at Connaught Place and it will now be ready by August 15.

Tata Projects Limited (TPL) is building the two smog towers with technical support from IIT-Bombay, which, in collaboration with IIT-Delhi, will validate their performance.

NBCC India Ltd. has been appointed as project management consultant.

The CPCB is the nodal agency for the tower at Anand Vihar, while the Delhi Pollution Control Committee is the nodal agency for the one coming up at Connaught Place.

The two towers will have 1,200 air filters each developed by experts at the University of Minnesota in the United States - which also helped design a 100-metre-high smog tower in Xian, China.

The smog towers, being built at a cost of Rs 22 crore each, are estimated to reduce concentration of PM2.5 up to 70 per cent in a 1-km radius around them.

The SC had in January last year directed the central government to construct a smog tower to reduce pollution at Anand Vihar and the Delhi government to install another such structure at Connaught Place in three months.

In August, the apex court had reprimanded the Centre and state government for missing the deadline for completing the construction of two smog towers. GVS CK