Gurgaon: Haryana’s pollution monitoring network was severely compromised with 20 out of 32 stations, including three in the city, going offline Wednesday, skewing data recording at a time when air quality needs to be closely watched. As a result, there was no decoding of the nature of the haze that hung over the city with the official data showing AQI at 150 (moderate). But this data was from the lone functional station at Vikas Sadan.

The other three stations, located at Gwalpahari, Teri Gram and Sector 51, were offline due to technical snags and delayed calibration, according to Haryana State Pollution Control Board (HSPCB) officials. The same happened in Faridabad, Hisar, Panchkula, Rohtak and other places. Outages left these centres without real-time pollution data, just as stubble burning and changing weather conditions increase levels of particulate matter. Shubhansh Tiwari, a research associate at Centre for Science and Environment, said, “Industrial belts and traffic corridors are missing from the data. Despite AQI in Gurgaon hovering between 150 and 180 over the past week, labelled as “moderate”, residents have reported experiencing smog, eye irritation and breathlessness.” HSPCB officials claimed that repairs are under way, but didn’t provide a specific timeline about when the monitoring stations would be restored. Manoj Kumar, an analyst at Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), said calibration and maintenance should be done well before the pollution season, not during it. “Renewed failure of AQI monitoring stations undermines public confidence in air quality data. When monitors go offline during high-pollution episodes, we lose the evidence base for any future policy evaluation,” he added. Last winter, several NCR stations went offline during peak smog months, raising questions about reliability of the monitoring network and the state’s preparedness to track pollution in real time.