KMC, RTO & 15 other depts to table concrete plan to combat air pollution

Kanpur: The district administration has asked 17 government establishments, including Kanpur Municipal Corporation, Kesco, RTO and Regional Pollution Control Board to present plans for combating air pollution as it was giving a bad name to the city.
District magistrate Kanpur Nagar Vijay Vishwas Pant asked the officials to be present with concrete plan to combat air pollution at a meeting scheduled to be held at Collectorate auditorium on June 10.
Notably, activism of the National Green Tribunal has forced various government organizations to become active on the issue of air and water pollution. Recently, NGT issued notices to 15 cities of the state that have been termed as “most air polluted” and asked them to identify the causes of air pollution and eradicate them.
According to officials, NGT and Regional Pollution Control Board have chalked out a master plan upto 2021 and have started acting upon it. Under the plan, it has been decided to control the fumes emitting from burning garbage, vehicles, incinerators, industrial units and generators.
Regional Pollution Control Board officials said main cause of air pollution in the city was dust and smoke emanating from vehicles, including outdated vehicles. “Another major reason is burning of garbage due to which particulate matter (P.M. 2.5 and 10 ) contents of sulphur dioxide, nitrogen di-oxide, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide is more than stipulated standard which is injurious for human health,” officials said.
WHO global database released in Geneva last year had claimed that Kanpur was among the worst in terms of PM 2.5 concentration (173 micrograms per cubic metre), followed by Faridabad, Varanasi and Gaya.
According to WHO data, Nine in 10 people in the world breathe polluted air. In another statement, WHO had claimed that seven million people die every year because of outdoor and household air pollution. Ambient air pollution alone caused some 4.2 million deaths in 2016 while household air pollution from cooking with polluting fuels and technologies caused an estimated 3.8 million deaths in the same period, the report stated.