Air pollution survey
The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) report on air pollution, based on surveys over a period of 4 to years upto 2005, does not project a very encouraging picture. This survey was carried out in India’s 17 major cities including Agra, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Faridabad, Hyderabad, Kolkata.
Supreme Court expressed to carry out surveys in these cities over the rise in air pollution and sought action to reduce pollution in the cities. The air pollution report shows a marginal decline in the air pollution level.
Anumita Roychowdhury, Associate director of Centre for Science and Research said even if there had been a marginal decrease, the problem was that the decline over such a long period was still not good enough neither for public health nor for the environment in general.
The Central Pollution Control Board report examines the sources of air pollution ambient air quality and violations of National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS). The Central Pollution Control Board member-Secretary B.B. Sengupta said that those cities had alarming levels of pollution and they had taken action or had asked for action in those cities to curb pollution.
Several steps were taken to curb pollution in several cities including Delhi, Lucknow and Kanpur. Roy Chowdhury said that all the attention and focus was only on the big cities due to various pressures while the smaller cities and towns were being ignored and it was there that pollution levels were alarming.
