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Why are we doing this? For any city or urban or rural area with population range of 5 crore to 1 lakh people and abundant flora and fauna, having standalone air monitoring stations are not healthy and it has to be supported with real-time stations across the city where major contributors are from transportation, industries, construction, road dust, garbage burning, biomass cooking, episodic crop residue burning.

How are we re-solving the issue of poor air quality? Recently, low-cost air quality sensors (LCS) have emerged as an alternative that can improve the granularity of air monitoring thereby identifying the “local sources” in specific areas. By installing these LCS across multiple areas, it helps to narrow down and identify the particular pollutant, source, and hence steps to mitigate it. This creates awareness and a ripple effect among citizens, hence the narrative around “air pollution” and solution for pollution begins simultaneously. Also, the citizens are informed about the level of pollution in real-time, with help of App or SMS or display boards, which helps, triggers conversation, and keeps them to be part of the system and solutions.

Which low cost sensor are we deploying? We have our own Purple Air sensor unit, that collects data of Particulate Matter 2.5 (PM2.5) with help of Plantower sensor and the weather conditions such as temperature, humidity across Indo-Gangetic Plain( https://www.purpleair.com/map to keep informed on Air we Inhale and also solve the Air Pollution issue in our local area like Garbage or bio-mass burning, Construction Debris, Vehicular Emission, Traffic Congestion, Vehicles idling etc.

What does a sensor do? Think of the health Band that some of us use. It shows our heart-beat, number of steps we walked and many other parameters based on a" sensor inside it". So, a sensor is a device that measures a physical property and responds to that measurement or records that observation as a data point. We analyze data by deploying our own sensors or relying on people/government to deploy sensors.

Examples of Sensors in a City: GPS sensors in App Sharing Bikes, a Surveillance camera in places.

How citizens benefit with these Air Quality Devices?

We roll out the sensor units across 100 places in different places, combination of urban, suburban, villages across IGP to collect, collate and keep everyone informed on “Air Pollution and air quality “ in the place they live in. We began this approach as "Sensor Journalism" for solving the issue of Air pollution with strategic data collection and hence datasets for low cost sensors that helps to reach the doors of people and pollution control board members to mitigate the issue easily.

What are the merits of installing or using consumer grade (low cost sensors) for air quality monitoring?

LCS can be very effective screening tool to identify a problem area, such as a “hot spot” along roads or even to help identify the best location for a regulatory-type monitor. They could be useful to individuals interested in determining their own personal exposure to a pollutant, and guide them, in a qualitative sense, how to reduce their exposure. This could be an individual with particular air pollution sensitivities, or it could be for a jogger or bike rider exercising. Sensors could even be used by deploying them along the fence line of a pollution-emitting facility, informing the facility about its potential effects on its neighbors, and/or by that local neighborhood to learn about the impacts of the facility on the neighborhood. In addition, from a general environmental awareness or educational perspective, being more aware of air pollution in the environment is helpful.

What are the shortcomings of regulatory monitors installed by government?

These regulatory governed stations satisfy legislative requirements but do not provide data about local gradients of pollutants concentrations that can be significant for health protection: space–time variables are increasingly important to adequately characterize urban or rural air quality.