The toxic air
Air pollution levels in Jammu and Kashmir have always been a point of debate. While there has been no mechanism put in place to check the air pollution levels in the twin cities of Jammu and Srinagar, the World Health Organisation (WHO) earlier this year had listed Srinagar as one of the ten most polluted cities of the world.
In absence of real-time air quality data, there is ambiguity about the levels of pollutants in the air in Srinagar and Jammu. Though the Pollution Control Board (PCB) dismissed the WHO claim, the fact remains that air pollution is a serious issue in JK.
Just yesterday advisor to Governor, K Vijay Kumar while chairing a review meet of the PCB asked the agency to take strict measures for protecting the environment by preventing and controlling pollution by effective law enforcement and best environmental management practices.
Though the PCB under Ease of Doing Business has switched over to Online Consent Management & Monitoring System (OCMMS) since August 2017 for transparency and speedy disposal of consent cases but the fact remains that no mechanism has been put in place to check air quality levels in the state.
In this direction a proposal by the PCB that would have paved way for monitoring Kashmir’s air quality on real-time basis hasn’t seen any progress in the past three years following poor response to the tendering process.
In 2015, the PCB had announced that it would install a high-end air quality monitoring system in Jammu and Srinagar to provide real-time assessment of ambient air quality in the twin capital cities. But, so far no headway has been made in this direction.
The proposed Continuous Ambient Air Quality Monitoring System (CAAQMS), estimated to cost around Rs 3.54 crore for one station, can provide round-the-clock data on presence of pollutants in the air.
The delay is caused due to some administrative issue, but the establishment of CAAQMS is an important project and cannot be delayed owing to the deteriorating air quality level in the twin cities of the state.
The issues which the PCH has been flagging are that no serious bidder is participating in the tendering process to establish the equipments. Only one bidder had participated in the process and the PCB had not approved his bid.
The reasons for not getting the proposal up and running many be varied but the damage air pollution is causing to the environs and the human race here cannot be put aside.
A report published in Lancet, a leading medical journal, puts J&K among top four Indian states in terms of respiratory diseases, attributing it majorly to air pollution and smoking.
As winter has already made its presence felt in JK, chest ailments are witnessing a rise as patients with respiratory diseases have been getting uncomfortable. While doctors suspect deteriorating air quality in Kashmir as a major cause, lack of real-time ambient air quality monitoring leaves little choice for the researchers to call for some short and long term measures to bring in some relief on the pollution front.
KV Online
