It has been about a month since the national programme for air pollution abatement has been launched and there has not been any massive improvement as such. India happens to have 14 cities, which are the most polluted on earth. The country continued to choke with toxic air quality during this winter as well.
Out of the 74 cities, assessed by CPCB, it was just one city which managed to shine through. Patiala was the only city which has been able to meet the safe air standards.
Moreover, Ghaziabad has had PM 2.5 levels average which are six times higher than India’s. In fact, on January 17, the 24-hour PM 2.5 average was 14 times higher than the safe standard of WHO.
Delhi’s air quality remained above the safe limits on all days since November 2018 until January 2019’s first week.
A budget of Rs 300 crore has been chalked out for the programme for the years 2018-19 as well as 2019-20. The programme will now focus on 102 pollute cities with each city getting Rs 2.9 crore. The programme will aim in reducing the overall pollution levels by 20-30% annually until 2024 with the base year being 2017.
The programme will not only issue indoor pollution guidelines but also expand air quality monitoring network in cities, villages along with conducting studies on health impacts of air pollution.
Twenty eight cities on February 4 were struggling to breathe fresh air. Moreover, cities of Delhi, Varanasi, Patna, Lucknow, Ujjain, Patna, Kolkata, saw air quality ranging between poor and very poor.
Also, 35 cities which includes Mumbai, Jaipur, Pune and Jalandhar observed air quality in the moderate category.
Image Credit: ndtv
