Air pollution in 6 Odisha cities to be reduced

Bhubaneswar: Six cities in Odisha among 122 non-attainment cities included under the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) will have clean sky in upcoming days.

This was revealed at a webinar on the first-ever International Day of Clean Air for Blue Skies attended by Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar on Monday in New Delhi.

Speaking at the programme, Javadekar said that Centre is committed to reducing the air pollution level in 122 most polluted cities. He along with State Babul Supriyo and Ministry of Environment Secretary RP Gupta launched a brochure on integrated measures to combat air pollution under NCAP.

He said that thee Centre had launched the Air Quality Index (AQI) monitoring in 2014 and currently the pollution levels are being tracked on eight parameters.

He said that several measures have been taken to lessen the air pollution level in industrial cities. As the country has been migrated to BS-VI standards, quality petrol and diesel is being provided, which is an important initiative to fight against pollution.

At the webinar, he stressed on use of electric vehicles and suggested to adopt zig-zag technology in brick kilns in various states to reduce pollution. He also highlighted that people’s participation is must to clean the air and use of public transport must be promoted.

In January 2019, the Environment Ministry had launched the NCAP to tackle the air pollution with a target to achieve 20 to 30 percent reduction in PM10 and PM2.5 levels by 2024.

Earlier, the plan had identified 102 non-attainment cities across 23 states and union territories. Later, 20 more non-attainment cities including 6 from Odisha were included under the NCAP based on latest data trend on air quality.

The six cities in Odisha included, Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Angul, Talcher, Balasore and Rourkela.

Air pollution is one of the risk factors in Odisha. The death rate per 1 lakh population at 65.3 is quite similar to that of Delhi.