The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) on Thursday introduced fog cannon machines to curb air pollution which has reached alarming levels in the city.
The initiative was launched under the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) and is part of the 15th Finance Commission's efforts to curb air pollution across 130 cities in India.
The fog cannons aim to control the concentration of particulate matter—PM 10 (particles smaller than 10 microns) and PM 2.5 (particles smaller than 2.5 microns)—in the air.
As part of the project, PMC has procured five fog cannon machines, one for each of its five administrative zones. These machines are mounted on CNG-powered truck chassis, each equipped with a 6,000-litre stainless steel water tank. The trucks have high-pressure pumps of 3 KW power with 22 nozzles fitted at the rear. These nozzles spray ultra-fine water droplets (up to 50 microns) at a pressure of 10 kg/sq cm, helping to reduce dust particles in the air.
Similar fog cannon machines have been successfully deployed in cities like Delhi, Chandigarh, Mira-Bhayandar and Pimpri-Chinchwad.
In Pune, these machines will be used primarily on key roads prone to high dust accumulation, including Karve Road, Satara Road, Solapur Road, Sinhagad Road, Shivajinagar to Baner, Sangamwadi – Yerawada – Kesnand Phata, etc.
Additionally, the fog cannon machines will be deployed at other necessary locations across the city.
