The effects of air pollution on human well-being and health are monumentally severe and calls for immediate measures to curb it. The global assessment of exposure and burden of disease which assessed the adverse health impacts from exposure to particulate revealed that in 2012 one out of every nine deaths occurred due to air pollution. This figure cumulatively accounts to 3 million deaths that are directly linked to ambient air pollution.
These finding came under discussion on Tuesday here at a national conference on Clean Air Bihar hosted by Centre for Environment and Energy Development (CEED) where panelist suggested plan to address challenges and unlock opportunities. The conference demanded that the Bihar Government should formulate roadmap for an action plan for Patna and other Bihar cities.
There is an urgent need to adopt various strategies in order to improve the urban air quality, the speakers said and added that it was imperative to solemnly focus on developing an efficient public transportation system where use of alternative fuels should be promoted, both for energy security and emission reduction as well as clean energy technologies like solar power.
While elaborating need for an action plan CEO of CEED Ramapati Kumar said the air pollution level in Patna has become toxic enough. “We must work on a war footing basis to create a plan that commands complete convergence without silos and can be evaluated timely,” he said.
Pollution level in Bihar, said Sagnik Dey of IIT Delhi, is increasing by 3 per cent per year and blamed population and density as the major factor for the high pollution. Tanvi Bongale of World Resource Institute spoke about pollution by the vehicles particularly two-wheelers and Sonal Kumar of Greentech Knowledge blamed the increasing number of brick kilns. He said in Bihar there are about 8,000 kilns which produce 2000 crore bricks every year.
The speakers agreed that the main contributing factors for air pollution were notably the unprecedented growth in vehicular pollution, construction activities that also pushed the brick kiln industry, residential stoves and unmanaged solid waste. The total number of registered vehicles in Patna as on March 2012 was 742,889 which accounted for 14 per cent of the total particulate matter emission. The brick kiln industries contributed to 16 per cent of pollution. Patna, it was said, was amongst the 20 most populated cities in the country with an approximate population of 1.68 million.