Pune for 3 months every year - low air pollution areas

skk

I'm 54, and - so I'm planning the rest of my life - around 3 months in Maharahtra/India in the cool season, 3 months in Colorado during the summer, 3 months in South West USA during the winter and England in spring - at least that's the plan.

I grew up in Pune India(St. Vincents High ) till the age of 12 but have been out of the country since, though I have visited every 3/5 years for a few days at a time all through the 70s, 80s, 90s, and 00s. I have OCI citizenship and can speak Marathi and Hindi, sort of.

The place in India I would want have a well educated, higher income populace as a rule with good medical care - sort of like Boulder CO but warmer and Indian ! Pune sounds like it doesn't it?

As a first step I'm going to spend 2 months over Diwali in Maharashtra India with the goal of encountering and solving as many of the problems that one would face as I lived there more long term. So I will have many questions that I will post in this or other sub-forums as appropriate.

The question for this subforum is that Pune seems to fit the bill as the place for me - EXCEPT for the pollution - I've been aghast at the smog layer, as seen from Parvati, that hangs over the city, or along Tilak Road at rushhour...

But, I lived in Los Angeles and if you picked your area of the Southland you could really escape much of the air pollution... it required knowing the air flow etc, reading the Air Quality management District(AQMD ) reports.

So.. the question in this forum is - which suburbs or EXURBS of Pune would be less polluted ? Are there measures/websites where I can monitor the air quality of Pune ( Ozone, particulates and NOx in particular UNLESS there's something of more significance in Pune that I'm unaware of) - and what are the upsides and downsides of these suburbs/exurbs ?

Again, the question is - what are the low AIR pollution areas of Pune ?

TIA,
-skk

edwardseco

I think the same in Pune where it is significantly polluted in the evenings. Try the outskirts. But, the problem is transportation. Pune has changed so much over the last few decades..

skk

re: edwardseco

Yup, outskirts sounds right - but I'm not familiar with the local meteorological conditions during the cool season( when I expect to be there ) - an example of how I could go wrong would be that the monsoon winds come over the Ghats so at first sight, being in the outskirts between the Ghats and Pune city, so, say in Pashan sounds good since the smog would blow out of Pune and eastwards and leave Pashan pretty clean - but for all I know there's a dirty great big power station of chemical factory in that area ..

And of course I have no idea which way the prevailing winds blow during the cool season.. they may blow east to west for all I know, dumping Pune city's smog onto Pashan !

Would appreciate any local expertise on this..

-K

skk

I've made some progress on this. I found this website of the Maharashtra Pollution Control board http://mpcb.mah.nic.in/

The website has a data page where I could find average daily pollution concentration levels at 5 different stations in and around Pune ! I can't quite get a years worth of data or more yet but once I can I'll be able to the requisite analysis and get a much better quantitative picture, especially if I can find some meteorological data !

More as I find it. ( Credit where credit's due - Google turned up a blog in Pune on pollution matters, I contacted the blog writer who I won't mention to protect his privacy and he responded with the mpcb website and more!).

-skk

skk

Alright, just for future reference for other people who pass by here, from some research papers( contact me for details) it looks like the winds are northwesterly, Northerly March thru Dec and easterly Jan and Feb. Looking at the terrain, the Mutha river valley with the hills along the north side would be a really nasty funnel, raining crap down the poor innocents downwind of the city as far as Lohgao even I expect. Curling, turbulence effects probably affect Pune University.

The heavy industrial, chemical plants area is out in Daund so that's not a worry, and one would stay upwind of the automotive areas around Pimpri etc.

North and West - NCL, Pashan lake look pretty good, Katraj Lake, BalajiNagar and DankaWadi to the S and West are even better.

In all cases, I'll always stay WELL AWAY from a main road. So much for the best laid plans.. I'll report back on the actual experience.

-skk

edwardseco

You did a great job, impressive..

Swat Kat

Try Sahakar Nagar-2 (I guess near Parvati), it's the best place in Pune that I have seen recently(2007), I stay in Pennsylvania and visit India once in 2 years......

skk

OK.. thanks. I checked the terrain and locale and its definitely in frame. Mann.. I remember when all that area was totally unpopulated. I checked the Maharastra Pollution Control Board for numerical data for that area - unfortunately the closest monitoring station is at Swar Gate which doesn't remotely resemble Sahakar Nagar in pollution generation, dispersal, and residual characteristics. At least, that what I sense from the maps - your experience adds to that too.

I'm going to spend a little time to see if I can rent/build or somehow get hold of some pollution measuring equipment when I'm there.

Incidentally, I checked the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board website just now; I've had some email conversations with them about portions of the website that didn't work and suggested it was due to browser incompatibility - I noticed today that they've put up a nice "Best using IE " notice. I'm quite comfortable with that.

Now, if only the IRCTC responds so well when I get round to discussing their web-site issues ( the infamous multiple intermittently working payments gateways issue ) with them. Here's hoping, guys.

-skk