GURGAON: A large chunk of Delhi's neighbourhood has been pollution-blind since April and could remain so when toxic air over the region peaks in Oct-Nov, severely undermining mitigation strategies over India's most polluted airshed.
All 29 air quality monitoring stations in Haryana operated by state pollution control board (HSPCB) have been offline since April 2 this year. The state's pollution data, meanwhile, has been coming from just two stations of the India Meteorological Department, one in Gurgaon and the other in Panchkula.
HSPCB stations are offline because the board let the maintenance contract with the firm that had managed monitors for five years lapse without lining up a stopgap fix. Air monitoring stations began going offline after Oct 31 last year. By Dec 31, nearly 50% of the stations had stopped recording data, which is used by HSPCB and Central Pollution Control Board to issue daily pollution bulletins and by CAQM to formulate strategies for bad-air days.
Gurgaon staring at no alerts, no enforcement in smog season
The stations progressively went on the blink till the whole network went down on April 2.
On days when the IMD stations don’t record air quality because of glitches or other reasons, the state has no pollution data. This happened in Gurgaon for several days this month when the IMD station in Gwalpahari wasn’t working. A tender floated in May 2025 for an operator drew only one bidder. The bid was automatically disqualified under govt’s procurement rules that require at least two bidders for competitive selection. According to officials, the second round of tenders is still being prepared and is expected to be issued this week with a late-Aug deadline for submissions.
Once bids are received, a lengthy evaluation follows. The process involves technical scrutiny, financial review, clearance by a high-powered committee and finally approval from the chief minister’s office. That, according to officials, could take 60 to 90 days. That means Haryana could enter peak smog season without real-time AQI data , without which there can be no alerts, no enforcement and no public warnings. These are all critical to Grap (graded response action plan), which usually comes into force from Oct 15.
“There should have been a contingency plan. Even if you want to bring in a new vendor, you don’t shut off surveillance entirely. That’s like switching off CCTV in a high-crime zone because you are changing the camera vendor,” a senior HSPCB official admitted.
Sunil Dahiya, founder and lead analyst at Envirocatalysts, emphasised the importance of timely administrative decisions on bids for new contracts. “Decisions on opening bids for new contracts for govt services are usually planned well before the existing one ends, especially for maintaining such critical infrastructure as air quality monitoring in a state like Haryana, which lies in one of the most polluted areas. It’s unfortunate that this happened, but it should serve as a reminder to plan better for the future and for other states,” he said.
Asked about it, HSPCB chairman Vineet Garg said the board has changed certain conditions in the tender and will be floating it by the end of July.
While Grap’s implementation is based on Delhi’s AQI data, anti-pollution measures are enforced in all NCR cities after analysing indices recorded by local air monitors.
“This blackout is likely to have serious consequences. Winter is the most polluted time of year in Haryana, with air quality often slipping into ‘very poor’ or ‘severe’ category due to stagnant weather, crop residue burning and fossil fuel emissions. Without functioning monitors, district authorities can’t track local AQI levels, identify pollution spikes, decide when to implement pollution curbs,” said Shubhansh Tiwari, research associate at Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), adding that the state would essentially be forced to rely on Delhi data.
The implication goes beyond Grap. Under National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) and its state-specific pollution control action plans, govt must track, report and demonstrate year-on-year improvements in air quality, all of which are data-dependent.
Manoj Kumar, an analyst at Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), said with the entire network rendered non-functional, there is growing concern about the progress, or lack thereof, made over the past six months. “In the absence of real-time data, it is tough to assess if efforts are underway to restore the monitoring system ahead of the upcoming peak pollution season. This gap in information affects both public awareness and the ability to evaluate policy response,” Kumar added.
The two monitors in Gurgaon and Panchkula cover just a fraction of the state’s urban and industrial landscape. “You can’t extrapolate Delhi’s air to Karnal or Hisar,” said a senior officer who is part of the clean air programme. “The pollution sources, local weather patterns, and emissions vary. A single reading from Gurgaon tells you nothing about what’s happening in Yamunanagar or Panipat,” he said. For that matter, a station in one part of a large city won't even capture the picture in another part of it.
A study of the air quality data by CREA found that Jan 19, 2025, was Gurgaon’s “overshoot day”. By then, PM 2.5 concentration was already so high that even if levels were to drastically reduce to zero for the rest of the year, the city would still fail to meet the acceptable limit specified by World Health Organisation (WHO). The analysis ranked Gurgaon as the fifth most polluted Indian city in the first half of 2025.
All 29 air quality monitoring stations in Haryana operated by state pollution control board (HSPCB) have been offline since April 2 this year. The state's pollution data, meanwhile, has been coming from just two stations of the India Meteorological Department, one in Gurgaon and the other in Panchkula.
HSPCB stations are offline because the board let the maintenance contract with the firm that had managed monitors for five years lapse without lining up a stopgap fix. Air monitoring stations began going offline after Oct 31 last year. By Dec 31, nearly 50% of the stations had stopped recording data, which is used by HSPCB and Central Pollution Control Board to issue daily pollution bulletins and by CAQM to formulate strategies for bad-air days.
Gurgaon staring at no alerts, no enforcement in smog season
The stations progressively went on the blink till the whole network went down on April 2.
On days when the IMD stations don’t record air quality because of glitches or other reasons, the state has no pollution data. This happened in Gurgaon for several days this month when the IMD station in Gwalpahari wasn’t working. A tender floated in May 2025 for an operator drew only one bidder. The bid was automatically disqualified under govt’s procurement rules that require at least two bidders for competitive selection. According to officials, the second round of tenders is still being prepared and is expected to be issued this week with a late-Aug deadline for submissions.
Once bids are received, a lengthy evaluation follows. The process involves technical scrutiny, financial review, clearance by a high-powered committee and finally approval from the chief minister’s office. That, according to officials, could take 60 to 90 days. That means Haryana could enter peak smog season without real-time AQI data , without which there can be no alerts, no enforcement and no public warnings. These are all critical to Grap (graded response action plan), which usually comes into force from Oct 15.
“There should have been a contingency plan. Even if you want to bring in a new vendor, you don’t shut off surveillance entirely. That’s like switching off CCTV in a high-crime zone because you are changing the camera vendor,” a senior HSPCB official admitted.
Sunil Dahiya, founder and lead analyst at Envirocatalysts, emphasised the importance of timely administrative decisions on bids for new contracts. “Decisions on opening bids for new contracts for govt services are usually planned well before the existing one ends, especially for maintaining such critical infrastructure as air quality monitoring in a state like Haryana, which lies in one of the most polluted areas. It’s unfortunate that this happened, but it should serve as a reminder to plan better for the future and for other states,” he said.
Asked about it, HSPCB chairman Vineet Garg said the board has changed certain conditions in the tender and will be floating it by the end of July.
While Grap’s implementation is based on Delhi’s AQI data, anti-pollution measures are enforced in all NCR cities after analysing indices recorded by local air monitors.
“This blackout is likely to have serious consequences. Winter is the most polluted time of year in Haryana, with air quality often slipping into ‘very poor’ or ‘severe’ category due to stagnant weather, crop residue burning and fossil fuel emissions. Without functioning monitors, district authorities can’t track local AQI levels, identify pollution spikes, decide when to implement pollution curbs,” said Shubhansh Tiwari, research associate at Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), adding that the state would essentially be forced to rely on Delhi data.
The implication goes beyond Grap. Under National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) and its state-specific pollution control action plans, govt must track, report and demonstrate year-on-year improvements in air quality, all of which are data-dependent.
Manoj Kumar, an analyst at Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), said with the entire network rendered non-functional, there is growing concern about the progress, or lack thereof, made over the past six months. “In the absence of real-time data, it is tough to assess if efforts are underway to restore the monitoring system ahead of the upcoming peak pollution season. This gap in information affects both public awareness and the ability to evaluate policy response,” Kumar added.
The two monitors in Gurgaon and Panchkula cover just a fraction of the state’s urban and industrial landscape. “You can’t extrapolate Delhi’s air to Karnal or Hisar,” said a senior officer who is part of the clean air programme. “The pollution sources, local weather patterns, and emissions vary. A single reading from Gurgaon tells you nothing about what’s happening in Yamunanagar or Panipat,” he said. For that matter, a station in one part of a large city won't even capture the picture in another part of it.
A study of the air quality data by CREA found that Jan 19, 2025, was Gurgaon’s “overshoot day”. By then, PM 2.5 concentration was already so high that even if levels were to drastically reduce to zero for the rest of the year, the city would still fail to meet the acceptable limit specified by World Health Organisation (WHO). The analysis ranked Gurgaon as the fifth most polluted Indian city in the first half of 2025.
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