Ahmedabad: For residents like S Renjith and his family, and Joydeep Sen Gupta, winters in Ahmedabad are not just about the cold weather. For them, it is a season of nasal assault.
A recurring, nauseating chemical stench, described by them as “rotten and pervasive,” blankets their neighbourhoods at Khoraj—along the SG Highway. This is a consequence of a meteorological phenomenon called inversion and the city’s struggle with pollution.
“It’s an imitation, a truly bad smell,” says Renjith, a resident of the Amoga complex in Khoraj. For four years, he, his wife Divya, and their 14-year-old daughter endured this annual onslaught. Even freshly laundered clothes, Renjith says, can absorb the stench. The smell, he notes, intensifies in the early mornings and late evenings, receding only when daytime winds offer temporary respite.
“During the temperature inversion, a layer of warm air traps cooler air near the ground. This prevents pollutants from rising and dispersing, leading to a build-up of pollutants at ground level. This can cause fumes from factories and stench from landfills, from industrial areas like Vatva, Narol, and Pirana landfill respectively, to travel to other parts of the city,” says a senior Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB) official.
Joydeep, a relative newcomer to Ahmedabad, residing in the nearby society Meadows, shared the experience. “It’s a pungent stench,” he says, “very nauseating.” His 10th-floor apartment, located near a particular source of the odour, offers little escape. He noticed the problem in late Nov, and his neighbours told him it will last until late Feb.
Both Renjith and Joydeep, originally from Delhi now hope that city authorities can find a scientific solution to mitigate the stench and improve the air quality for all.