One such station has already been set up at the Mayur Park Housing Board quarters, Gorwa, at a cost of Rs 40 lakhs. The LCDBs will be installed at various points in the city within the next two months.

Talking to Express Newsline, GPCB member-secretary G B Soni said the instruments -- two-meter-tall computerised gadgets imported from France -- would allow the display of data such as the quality and quantity of atmospheric pollutants, temperature, humidity, wind direction and weather conditions round-the-clock.

According to Soni and Vadodara regional Scientific Officer Dipti Salat, Gujarat has been given two of these instruments, while Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka have been given one each. In some of the metros, leading oil companies have installed the machines.

While the Gorwa station can detect industrial pollution, the authorities plan to shift the instrument to a spot in the heart of the city, where it will register vehicular pollution as well. In Ahmedabad, the station has been located in the heart of the busy Ashram Road. The data produced by the station can be accessed from any number of places.

``The idea is to check pollution. Government teams cannot move around with various equipment to record and decode readings before presenting it to public or the authorities.

Moreover, officials rarely record pollution levels at odd hours, which is when industrial units often emit pollutants'', an official explained.

Expressing hope that round-the-clock displays would also generate public interest and concern, official sources said the equipment could not be tampered with, as it can be programmed only at the GPCB headquarters.

Soni said that besides this machine, state of the art equipment worth Rs 14 crore had been received for GPCB labs in Vadodara, Vapi, Surat, Bhavnagar, Gandhinagar, Jamnagar and Rajkot in the past couple of months.