Residents have, for long, been demanding air pollution monitoring centres in different parts of the city for getting an accurate picture of the level of pollution.

The district magistrate said that the meters will be placed in different areas, including Mohan Nagar, district headquarters and other sites, which will be linked to a dashboard that is to be installed at the office of the district magistrate.

“At present, we have only two places where monitoring stations are installed (Vasundhara and Model Town). Since the exact picture of air pollution is not generated, we plan to install devices at more locations to measure air pollution. This is among our plan, which includes more initiatives. Funds can be pooled in from the district mineral fund,” Ritu Maheshwari, district magistrate, said.

The scenario in Ghaziabad is already dire as the city has topped the list of polluted cities several times. The ranking is done as per the air quality index data rolled out daily by the Central Pollution Control Board.

“We have also planned that air pollution monitoring instruments be placed at polluting units so that other emissions by factories water polluting units can be checked online. To curb emissions, we have already started night patrolling. The first inspection was taken up on Tuesday night and six factories were checked for use of pet coke and furnace oil,” Maheshwari said.

To help suggest measures to tackle pollution, Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, will prepare an Environment Management Plan that will be submitted to the Ghaziabad Development Authority in four months. Further, the administration has also planned steps to track pollution accurately.

Officials from IIT and GDA on Wednesday held a meeting about the plan, for which data is being compiled from different departments at present. The plan will be prepared at a cost of Rs50 lakh and comes after the Kaushambi apartments’ residents’ welfare association (KARWA) had moved the National Green Tribunal against polluted surroundings. KARWA is presently contesting a contempt petition in the matter.

“The plan will include measures to increase green areas, control traffic at various points, among other measures. This will be city-wide and data collection is already initiated by IIT. Although we tried to reduce the time period from four months, officials of IIT said that they require the time for coming up with a plan,” a GDA officer said.