Modernised pollution control laboratory set up in Visakhapatnam

In an attempt to curb the rising pollution levels in Visakhapatnam, a pollution control laboratory has been set up in the city. Established with a cost of Rs 20 crores, sourced from the World Bank, the new facility is equipped with many modern amenities.

Reportedly, it will now take about 10-20 minutes to recognize the pollutants in the environment, unlike the traditional ways which used to take much longer to accomplish the same. It has also been reported that the new facility can detect the pollutants with an accuracy of up to 99.9 per cent.

Touted to be the first-of-its-kind, the pollution control laboratory also boasts of special equipment to trace heavy metals like lead and mercury. Moreover, with the help of this new set up, the severity of pollutants present in the water like Zinc, Cadmium, and Chrome can be traced easily.

This laboratory also has got a weather monitoring system that will give information on wind speed, humidity, thrust, temperature, and rain density etc.

While the pollution control board launched a mobile laboratory in the past, it has been revamped with newer facilities to keep a tab on the pollution levels in different areas across Visakhapatnam.

“By setting up Pollution Control Laboratory, we have brought about a revolutionary change in identifying pollutants in the city. We can certainly identify the chlorides, sulphates, nitrates, ammonia, phosphates, fluorides, and other pollutants in water. Also, we can get an estimate of the measures to be taken by getting to know the intensity of such pollutants,” Lakshmi Narayana, Environment Engineer pollution Control Board was quoted as saying by Eenadu.