CAA to apply CAST for comprehensive analysis of air quality in NE States including Manipur
Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, December 19 2016:
In a move to provide the comprehensive analysis for understanding the air quality management status in a city, Clean Air Asia, an international NGO which is working towards better air quality and more livable cities in Asia since 2001, is applying the Clean Air Scorecard Tool (CAST) to three State capitals of North East including Imphal and 27 other Indian cities.
The three year long initiative will be taken up as part of applying CAST under Clean air management programs across 30 Indian cities including these three NE state capitals-Agartala, Guwahati and Imphal, according to CAA's India Director Prarthana Borah.
The cities that CAA is scheduled to explore for the application of CAST are Aurangabad, Mumbai, Nagpur, Nashik, Varanasi, Pune, Surat, Vadodara, Ahmedabad, Jallandhar, Dehradun, Varanasi, Allahabad, Kanpur, Jaipur, Lucknow, Kolkata, Bhubhaneshwar, Cuttack, Patna, Noida, Gwalior, Bhopal, Raipur, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Gurgaon, Faridabad and Ghaziabad.
The move came while population in polluted Indian cities including the national capital are suffering from various health complications due high content poisonous particles in its air.
"We're considering small town too because they've different issues and the CAST is a comprehensive tool that provides an understanding on the air quality management, identifies gaps in air quality management strategies through objective research and provides core solutions so the people of the city breathe cleaner, better air," says Prarthana.
"Since its development in 2010, the CAST has been applied in 19 Asian cities from nine countries" .
Besides the melting of ice in Himalaya, issues of black carbon and new industrial cities etc will also be explored in consultation with the local bodies of the NE states, she added.
Prarthana was speaking to this reporter on the sideline of 2-day media sensitization on air pollution at World Wide Fund for Nature premises in New Delhi from December 15-16 where she was talking on how Chinese authority combats air pollution.
Stating that India has around 342 air pollution monitoring stations including around 10 real time monitoring ones, she said, "In China, air pollution data are available in open, real time monitoring data available hourly besides others facilities.
The practices were also shared among cities (China) with their targets in different sectors along with capacity building programmes of the stakeholders." She also wants to have linkage between the air pollution and other health complications etc for a approach.
On the other hand expressing the need to develop more Mobile Apps to monitor the air quality of smaller towns too besides the bigger cities, Communication officer of CAA India office Bani Bains said, "Sometimes we also need solution oriented approach.
So we are planning to come out with new Apps to give real time datas etc.
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