1001 Smart Cities
🇮🇳 New Delhi

Delhi Smog Towers, Connaught Place & Anand Vihar

🤖 AI-generated summary · ◆ 9 sourced claims · 🔎 Last verified

This overview was generated with AI from the public sources listed below and checked against them before publication. It has not had a complete human fact-check — treat it as a starting point and follow the sources.

9 sourced claims on this page, none individually verified yet — turn on “Sources in the text” to see each one.

How this atlas is made · What “last verified” means · What “source-checked” means · The full record behind this page

✎ Updated 26 Aug 2026 9 claims added. · 2 revisions in all What changed →

Two towers pull air through 40 fans and 5,000 filters. On the pollution board's own arithmetic, covering Delhi would take 47,229 of them.

Outcome🪦 Failed
Evidence📊 Independent
what does this mean?The strongest source is an independent non-academic evaluation: an audit office, a government or EU review, or an NGO. It grades who did the looking — not how well the project went. All four grades →
Run byDelhi Pollution Control Committee (Connaught Place); Central Pollution Control Board, operations and maintenance by Tata Projects (Anand Vihar)
Scale🧪 Pilot
Costabout 20 crore rupees per tower (~US$2.5M)
FundingDelhi government (Connaught Place) and Government of India / CPCB (Anand Vihar)

Part of 1001 Smart Cities — 1,167 documented projects · 🏙️ 9 more in New Delhi · 🌫️ Air quality guide · 🌱 Environment projects

Delhi put up two 24-metre outdoor air-purification towers in 2021 — one at Connaught Place paid for by the Delhi government, one at Anand Vihar by the central pollution board — each costing around 20 crore rupees and pulling 1,000 cubic metres of air per second through 40 fans and 5,000 filters. Measured reductions stayed within a few hundred metres, and the Delhi Pollution Control Committee later told the National Green Tribunal the technology was impractical at city scale. The Connaught Place tower stopped running in 2023, and Delhi's environment minister said the pollution board's chairman had halted payments to IIT-Bombay, ending the commissioned two-year evaluation; reporters found the tower still idle in late 2025, while the central board maintains the Anand Vihar tower runs. Atmospheric scientists had argued before either was built that an open airshed cannot be filtered.

Suspended 📅 since 2021

📊 Impact

The Delhi Pollution Control Committee told the National Green Tribunal in 2023 that a tower cuts pollution by 17 per cent within a 100-metre radius, so covering Delhi's 1,483 square kilometres would take 47,229 of them at a cost of Rs 11,80,725 crore. The IIT-Bombay report it cited measured 48-56 per cent reduction within a 20-metre radius, falling to 12-13 per cent between 109 and 199 metres.

🎓 Lesson

The case against the towers was published before either was built: a peer-reviewed paper in 2020 answered its own title question with a short no, on the ground that an airshed has no boundaries and cannot be trapped, cleaned and released into itself. Three years later the pollution board reached the same place from measured data and said so to a tribunal. What Delhi lost when the payments stopped in 2023 was not the tower but the evidence — the commissioned two-year evaluation ended before it reported, so the central board's claim of up to 20 per cent reduction at the surviving tower has nothing independent standing against it.

🌱 EnvironmentAir quality

Sources

↗ Al Jazeera — New Delhi opens first 'smog tower'; expert says 'absolute waste'Published 23 August 202123 Aug 2021 inauguration; 40 fans processing 1,000 m3/s claimed to halve particulates within a 1 km2 radius; CEEW's Karthik Ganesan calls it 'futile, an absolute waste'.
↗ ThePrint — Delhi has two smog towers, but here's why they are unlikely to helpPublished 14 October 202114 Oct 2021. Both towers: 24 m, 20 crore rupees each, 40 fans, 5,000 HEPA filters, University of Minnesota design modified by IIT-Bombay and IIT-Delhi. Connaught Place operational 22 Sep 2021; Anand Vihar inaugurated 7 Sep 2021.
↗ ThePrint — Connaught Place smog tower shuts down amid pollution crisisPublished 3 November 20233 Nov 2023. The DPCC chairman halted release of operations and maintenance funds to IIT-Bombay and other agencies, ending the commissioned two-year impact study.
↗ LiveLaw — Supreme Court summons DPCC chairperson over non-functional smog towersPublished 7 November 2023 · updated 16 November 20237 Nov 2023. In M.C. Mehta v. Union of India the Court called it 'ludicrous that smog towers aren't working' and summoned the DPCC chairperson.
↗ Down To Earth — Smog towers ineffective, at least 40,000 needed in Delhi: DPCC tells NGTPublished 16 November 2023 · updated 22 April 2024 archived copy16 Nov 2023. Carries the impact figure: DPCC, citing an IIT-Bombay report showing 12-13% reduction within a 109-199 m radius, told the NGT that about 40,000 towers would be needed to cut pollution across Delhi's 1,483 km2 by 17%.
Show 3 more sourcesShow fewer
↗ Down To Earth — Delhi's smog tower remains useless in peak pollution seasonPublished 6 November 20246 Nov 2024. Connaught Place tower remains defunct more than a year on.
↗ The Tribune — CPCB claims Anand Vihar smog tower cuts bad air by 20%Published 20 November 202520 Nov 2025 — strongest recent source. CPCB RTI reply: Anand Vihar tower fully operational, up to 20% reduction within 200-400 m; Connaught Place tower non-functional. Notes media reports contradicting CPCB's operational claim.
↗ Guttikunda & Jawahar — Can We Vacuum Our Air Pollution Problem Using Smog Towers?, Atmosphere 11(9):922 (2020)Published 29 August 2020Peer-reviewed pre-construction critique: a Delhi-scale pilot tower filters about 0.00002% of the winter airshed. 'With no boundaries, it is unscientific to assume that one can trap air, clean it, and release into the same atmosphere simultaneously.'

📅 How old is the evidence?

Two clocks, kept apart: when this entry’s sources were published, and what has happened to its record in the atlas. Documented span: since 2021. 8 of 8 sources carry a publication date, from 29 August 2020 to 20 November 2025.

When the sources were published

  1. MDPI · researchGuttikunda & Jawahar — Can We Vacuum Our Air Pollution Problem Using Smog Towers?, Atmosphere 11(9):922 (2020)
  2. Al Jazeera · pressAl Jazeera — New Delhi opens first 'smog tower'; expert says 'absolute waste'
  3. ThePrint · pressThePrint — Delhi has two smog towers, but here's why they are unlikely to help
  4. ThePrint · pressThePrint — Connaught Place smog tower shuts down amid pollution crisis
  5. LiveLaw · pressLiveLaw — Supreme Court summons DPCC chairperson over non-functional smog towers · updated 16 November 2023
  6. Down To Earth · pressDown To Earth — Smog towers ineffective, at least 40,000 needed in Delhi: DPCC tells NGT · updated 22 April 2024
  7. Down To Earth · pressDown To Earth — Delhi's smog tower remains useless in peak pollution season
  8. The Tribune · pressThe Tribune — CPCB claims Anand Vihar smog tower cuts bad air by 20%

Every source, with links ↑

What happened to this record

  1. Sources last read
  2. Entered the record
  3. Publication date recorded for 8 sources
  4. 9 claims added

Every revision, permanent →

Show your work What this page rests on and what it can’t tell you · all 9 claims with their sources · the forensic record

Evidence Passport · public beta 9 addressable claims, 8 source dossiers, one permanent baseline. The passport is unreviewed — an AI-assisted structural migration, not a human or expert endorsement. Every revision keeps a permanent copy under revision history.

Inspect the claims, one by one — verbatim text, sources and caveats for all 9

The text below is copied verbatim from the published record. Each claim names the source dossiers that carry it; caveats stay attached to the claim they qualify.

Claim 1 clm-d351619409a0c840 quantitative
two 24-metre outdoor air-purification towers in 2021
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
ThePrint's account of both towers gives the height and the year they went up.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. ThePrint — Delhi has two smog towers, but here's why they are unlikely to help
Claim 2 clm-855eb51427c240cb quantitative
each costing around 20 crore rupees and pulling 1,000 cubic metres of air per second through 40 fans and 5,000 filters
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
ThePrint gives the cost and the filter count; Al Jazeera describes the forty fans moving 1,000 cubic metres a second.
Caveat
Later reporting gives the Connaught Place tower's cost as Rs 22 crore (The Tribune) and Rs 22.9 crore (Down To Earth); Rs 20 crore is the figure reported at construction.

Sources carrying this claim

  1. ThePrint — Delhi has two smog towers, but here's why they are unlikely to help
  2. Al Jazeera — New Delhi opens first 'smog tower'; expert says 'absolute waste'
Claim 3 clm-20ad1f36fd0f9e5c quantitative
The Connaught Place tower stopped running in 2023, and Delhi's environment minister said the pollution board's chairman had halted payments to IIT-Bombay, ending the commissioned two-year evaluation
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
ThePrint reports the shutdown and the minister's statement that funds to IIT-Bombay were stopped; the attribution to the minister is the report's own.
Caveat
The halt is the environment minister's account of the board chairman's decision, not a finding by a court or an auditor.

Sources carrying this claim

  1. ThePrint — Connaught Place smog tower shuts down amid pollution crisis
Claim 4 clm-b98ca74fe2dce248 quantitative
reporters found the tower still idle in late 2025, while the central board maintains the Anand Vihar tower runs
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
The Tribune reports the Connaught Place installation as non-functional while the central board's RTI reply calls the Anand Vihar tower fully operational.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. The Tribune — CPCB claims Anand Vihar smog tower cuts bad air by 20%
Claim 5 clm-7c59d808b15ef11b descriptive
Atmospheric scientists had argued before either was built that an open airshed cannot be filtered
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
The 2020 paper states the objection directly: with no boundaries it is unscientific to assume air can be trapped, cleaned and released into the same atmosphere.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Guttikunda & Jawahar — Can We Vacuum Our Air Pollution Problem Using Smog Towers?, Atmosphere 11(9):922 (2020)
Claim 6 clm-c2086e1e77e5379c quantitative
a tower cuts pollution by 17 per cent within a 100-metre radius, so covering Delhi's 1,483 square kilometres would take 47,229 of them at a cost of Rs 11,80,725 crore
Published field
impact · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
Down To Earth reports the committee's affidavit to the tribunal, including the per-tower reduction, the city's area and the resulting count and cost.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Down To Earth — Smog towers ineffective, at least 40,000 needed in Delhi: DPCC tells NGT
Claim 7 clm-abeebd652b4d2915 quantitative
The IIT-Bombay report it cited measured 48-56 per cent reduction within a 20-metre radius, falling to 12-13 per cent between 109 and 199 metres
Published field
impact · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
The same article reports the IIT-Bombay measurement bands the committee relied on.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Down To Earth — Smog towers ineffective, at least 40,000 needed in Delhi: DPCC tells NGT
Claim 8 clm-ddb6a9eb3323f78a quantitative
a peer-reviewed paper in 2020 answered its own title question with a short no
Published field
lesson · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
The paper asks whether air pollution can be vacuumed away with smog towers and answers that the short answer is no.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Guttikunda & Jawahar — Can We Vacuum Our Air Pollution Problem Using Smog Towers?, Atmosphere 11(9):922 (2020)
Claim 9 clm-3c6bd628f4c50b6b quantitative
the central board's claim of up to 20 per cent reduction at the surviving tower has nothing independent standing against it
Published field
lesson · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this passport
What the mapping says
The Tribune reports the board's own RTI figure and notes that media reports over the past year contradict its operational claim; no independent measurement is cited.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. The Tribune — CPCB claims Anand Vihar smog tower cuts bad air by 20%
Forensic record — source dossiers, gaps, hashes and the exact revision this page renders

This layer records what is known about each source, what is still missing, and the exact snapshot this page is rendering. A missing date, archive or hash stays visible as missing.

unreviewed Revision 2026-08-26-claim-mapping effective 2026-07-26 · created 2026-08-26

Awaiting operator and domain-expert review; publication of this revision implies neither.

sha256:b4c2ba001c042f0769f60d013f69e61ebc0b586d506631068b11f110bdcd3463
Revision history → Permanent version link → Machine-readable record → Evidence Constitution →
9
of 9 claims mapped
8
source dossiers
8
publication dates recorded
1
archives linked
0
exact locators
0
content captures hashed

Governance facts carried by the record

Operator
Delhi Pollution Control Committee (Connaught Place); Central Pollution Control Board, operations and maintenance by Tata Projects (Anand Vihar)
Actor types
city-government, national-government, private
Funding model
public
Funding description
Delhi government (Connaught Place) and Government of India / CPCB (Anand Vihar)
Cost
about 20 crore rupees per tower (~US$2.5M)
Ownership
Not recorded
Decision rights
Not recorded
Exit conditions
Not recorded

8 source dossiers

Al Jazeera — New Delhi opens first 'smog tower'; expert says 'absolute waste' aljazeera.com · 1 linked claim

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-6dc44387a0cb7f10
Publisher
Name not classified · aljazeera.com
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2021-08-23
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-07-26
Dossier created
2026-08-26
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

23 Aug 2021 inauguration; 40 fans processing 1,000 m3/s claimed to halve particulates within a 1 km2 radius; CEEW's Karthik Ganesan calls it 'futile, an absolute waste'.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
ThePrint — Delhi has two smog towers, but here's why they are unlikely to help theprint.in · 2 linked claims

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-f572888ad11c48e7
Publisher
Name not classified · theprint.in
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2021-10-14
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-07-26
Dossier created
2026-08-26
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

14 Oct 2021. Both towers: 24 m, 20 crore rupees each, 40 fans, 5,000 HEPA filters, University of Minnesota design modified by IIT-Bombay and IIT-Delhi. Connaught Place operational 22 Sep 2021; Anand Vihar inaugurated 7 Sep 2021.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
ThePrint — Connaught Place smog tower shuts down amid pollution crisis theprint.in · 1 linked claim

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-11a42ba184578697
Publisher
Name not classified · theprint.in
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2023-11-03
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-07-26
Dossier created
2026-08-26
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

3 Nov 2023. The DPCC chairman halted release of operations and maintenance funds to IIT-Bombay and other agencies, ending the commissioned two-year impact study.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
LiveLaw — Supreme Court summons DPCC chairperson over non-functional smog towers livelaw.in · background

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-cbcaea26f96a136d
Publisher
Name not classified · livelaw.in
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2023-11-07
Updated
2023-11-16
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-07-26
Dossier created
2026-08-26
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

7 Nov 2023. In M.C. Mehta v. Union of India the Court called it 'ludicrous that smog towers aren't working' and summoned the DPCC chairperson.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Background source; no baseline claim points here
Down To Earth — Smog towers ineffective, at least 40,000 needed in Delhi: DPCC tells NGT downtoearth.org.in · 2 linked claims

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-e9e2525bb7274192
Publisher
Name not classified · downtoearth.org.in
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2023-11-16
Updated
2024-04-22
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-07-26
Dossier created
2026-08-26
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
Open archived copy ↗ · 2026-04-16
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

16 Nov 2023. Carries the impact figure: DPCC, citing an IIT-Bombay report showing 12-13% reduction within a 109-199 m radius, told the NGT that about 40,000 towers would be needed to cut pollution across Delhi's 1,483 km2 by 17%.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Down To Earth — Delhi's smog tower remains useless in peak pollution season downtoearth.org.in · background

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-4a849565bcdb803b
Publisher
Name not classified · downtoearth.org.in
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2024-11-06
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-07-26
Dossier created
2026-08-26
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

6 Nov 2024. Connaught Place tower remains defunct more than a year on.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Background source; no baseline claim points here
The Tribune — CPCB claims Anand Vihar smog tower cuts bad air by 20% tribuneindia.com · 2 linked claims

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-52c3786a6f35c63f
Publisher
Name not classified · tribuneindia.com
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2025-11-20
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-07-26
Dossier created
2026-08-26
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

20 Nov 2025 — strongest recent source. CPCB RTI reply: Anand Vihar tower fully operational, up to 20% reduction within 200-400 m; Connaught Place tower non-functional. Notes media reports contradicting CPCB's operational claim.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Guttikunda & Jawahar — Can We Vacuum Our Air Pollution Problem Using Smog Towers?, Atmosphere 11(9):922 (2020) mdpi.com · 2 linked claims

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-644d29f30a092a75
Publisher
Name not classified · mdpi.com
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2020-08-29
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-07-26
Dossier created
2026-08-26
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Peer-reviewed pre-construction critique: a Delhi-scale pilot tower filters about 0.00002% of the winter airshed. 'With no boundaries, it is unscientific to assume that one can trap air, clean it, and release into the same atmosphere simultaneously.'

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Known limits of this passport
  • Publisher names and source languages have not yet been classified; domains are recorded without guessing.
  • Existing source notes are descriptive locators, not page- or paragraph-exact citations.
  • A missing archive, publication date or content hash is shown as null rather than inferred.
  • The project-level evidence grade ranks the strongest source in the entry; it is not a truth score for every claim.

Continue exploring

Compare this project

🇮🇳 GRAP: Air Quality Readings as a Legal Trigger · New Delhi Delhi's other answer to the same air: thresholds in the hourly AQI legally trigger bans, rather than machines filtering an open airshed. 🇩🇰 City Data Exchange · Copenhagen Publicly funded flagships abandoned: Copenhagen's data market closed in 2018 for lack of buyers; Delhi defunded its tower in 2023. 🇨🇳 High-density air-quality monitoring and source-apportionment network · Beijing Beijing spent its money measuring the airshed; Delhi built two machines to filter it, and its own regulator said 40,000 would be needed.

Explore the wider context

📟 A Reading Is Not a Decision📖 Source-checked📖 Track record📖 Air quality index (AQI)
📎 Cite this project

1001 Smart Cities (2026). “Delhi Smog Towers, Connaught Place & Anand Vihar” — New Delhi, India. The Smart City Atlas. https://1001smartcities.org/projects/delhi-smog-towers/ (last verified 2026-07-26). Data: CC BY 4.0.

The underlying data is free to reuse with attribution — see the open data page.

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