The Rajasthan State Pollution Control Board (RSPCB) will intensify air and noise pollution monitoring in Jaipur ahead of Diwali, activating 15 air-monitoring stations on November 1 and 8 and recording noise levels at seven locations during the evening and night.
An RSPCB official said all 15 air-monitoring stations would operate simultaneously on both days. The network includes nine manual stations and six continuous monitoring stations. While the manual stations generally operate twice a week on designated days, the continuous stations function round the clock.
The exercise is designed to capture pollution conditions around the festival period, when changes in particulate matter and noise levels can become an important concern for residents. The board will record noise levels in Jaipur from 6 pm to midnight at Gandhinagar, SDMH Hospital, Mansarovar, Civil Lines, Raja Park, VKI and Sitapura.
The selected sites cover residential, institutional, commercial and industrial parts of the city, according to the locations listed by the board. The monitoring will provide readings from different parts of Jaipur rather than relying on a single point in the city.
The RSPCB will also conduct a separate 15-day exercise from November 1 to 15 to test for heavy metals in PM10 and PM2.5 particulate matter. The sampling will be carried out at National Air Monitoring Programme stations in Jaipur, Jodhpur, Kota, Udaipur, Alwar and Bhiwadi.
PM10 and PM2.5 refer to particulate matter of different sizes that can remain suspended in the air. The board’s decision to test these particles for heavy metals means the exercise will examine their composition in addition to measuring particulate concentrations. The supplied report does not specify which heavy metals will be tested or when the results will be released.
For Jaipur, the monitoring combines fixed air-quality stations with time-bound noise readings at seven identified sites. It also places the city within a wider Rajasthan exercise covering six urban locations, allowing the board to collect heavy-metal data across Jaipur and other cities during the same period.
The RSPCB has not provided, in the supplied announcement, any forecast for pollution levels, details of enforcement measures or a public advisory linked to the monitoring schedule. The next stated steps are the simultaneous air monitoring on November 1 and 8, evening noise measurements through both dates, and the heavy-metal testing programme running from November 1 to 15.
