Clean air action plan
2 min readPatna: The Centre for Environment and Energy Development on Friday urged the Bihar government to include the state’s major cities in the Centre’s National Clean Air Programme draft to stimulate air pollution control efforts.
The request comes in the wake of the World Health Organization (WHO) report on alarming air pollution levels in Bihar. As part of the draft plan, 100 cities across the country will be selected to undertake air pollution minimisation initiatives.
Ramapati Kumar, the chief executive officer of CEED, said the government should take wholehearted efforts to combat air pollution.
“There is a clear need to introduce incentives for a transition towards cleaner-fuel technologies. Sufficient numbers of air quality monitoring stations are also required to remove data inadequacy,” said Ramapati.
The WHO report puts Patna ahead of Delhi, which is ranked sixth in the list of top-most polluted cities in the world. Gaya, Patna and Muzaffarpur were given 4th, 5th and 9th, respectively. Kanpur is the most air-polluted city in the world, followed by Faridabad and Varanasi.
Gaya, Patna and Muzaffarpur have, however, not been included in the draft national level action plan of the Centre.
Ramapati told The Telegraph that combustion of solid fuel and waste was the biggest cause for the alarming levels of air pollution, followed by vehicular pollution spewed by inefficient and environmentally unsustainable means of transport.
He, however, welcomed the Bihar government’s initiatives to draft a clean air action plan, saying it was “a welcome step, taken in the right time”.
Courtesy: The Telegraph
