Kolkata, May 6 () Very little commercial activityduring the ongoing lockdown and rain on Wednesday morning haveimproved the air quality in the city with the average indexremaining in the 'good' category, an official said.
The average air quality index (AQI) during the day was16 (PM 2.5) at a monitoring station in Jadavpur, 18 inRabindra Sarobar, 21 at Victoria Memorial, a West BengalPollution Control Board (WBPCB) official said.
The air quality indices at Fort William and Ballygunjair monitoring stations were at 24 and 23 respectively, theofficial said.
The average AQI was between 15 and 25 mark acrossdifferent air monitoring stations on April 30, he said.
The ongoing lockdown, which has been enforced bypolice strictly, led to much less accumulation of particulatematters in the air, coupled with heavy rain that cleansed theair further, the official said.
An AQI between 0 and 50 is considered 'good', 51-100'satisfactory', 101-200 'moderately polluted', 201-300 'poor',301-400 'very poor' and 401-500 'severe', while the AQI above500 falls in the 'severe plus' category.
On an average, the AQI hovers between 160 and 200across different air monitoring stations before the lockdown,the WBPCB official said.
"At Rabindra Sarobar, on April 6, PM 2.5 was 78micrograms per cubic metre of air and today it was 18. Itreduced significantly in a month," environmentalistSomendranath Ghosh said.
More tortoises have been spotted in the buffer zone ofRabindra Sarobar in the past couple of days as compared todays when it was open for morning walkers, KolkataMetropolitan Development Authority CEO Antara Acharya said.
Morning walkers have not been allowed to enter intothe lake during the lockdown.
Senior KMDA official Sudhin Nandy said the number oftortoise sightings has gone up to 10-12 now from just 2 or 3before the lockdown.
"As the air quality in the lake area has improvedsubstantially from satisfactory to good levels during the overone-month-long lockdown, with almost no human interference,our surveillance staff have reported rise in sightings oftortoise and other aquatic creatures like fish in the lakewater," he said.
A large number of birds, including those sightedrarely in past, are now coming as there is no crowd on thepremises of the lake, he said. SUSBDC BDC
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