*Determining quality of air nobody’s priority in J&K
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Apr 25: Determining the quality of air and assessing the effectiveness of the measures taken to check pollutants don’t carry any importance for the concerned authorities despite the fact that air pollution mainly due to sharp rise in vehicular population is on rise in Jammu and Kashmir.
This can be gauged from the fact that on one side the State Pollution Control Board has failed to set-up Continuous Automatic Air Quality Monitoring Station in Srinagar during the past two years and on the other side it could not convince the Central Pollution Control Board for sanctioning such a station in Jammu, which otherwise meets all the parameters in this regard.
Official sources told EXCELSIOR that over two years back the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) sanctioned Continuous Automatic Air Quality Monitoring Stations (CAAQMS) under National Ambient Air Quality Monitoring Network for those cities which have population of more than 10 lakh.
Though both the capital cities of the State—Jammu and Srinagar have population more than 10 lakh yet CAAQMS was sanctioned only for summer capital of the State due to the failure of concerned authorities to make proper projections before the Central Pollution Control Board.
At the time of sanctioning of CAAQMS for Srinagar, the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) even released its 50% share—Rs 55 lakh strictly as per the laid down clauses and asked the State to make arrangement of remaining 50% from its own resources. Even it was explicitly told to the Pollution Control Board of Jammu and Kashmir that Continuous Automatic Air Quality Monitoring Station shall be set-up in shortest possible time.
However, during the past two years the PCB has failed to set-up the station at Srinagar and the funds are lying unutilized, sources said while expressing inability to specify time-frame for establishment of such a station on the ground of poor response to the tenders floated by the Board so far.
“The Pollution Control Board has floated tenders twice and extended the second one but every time poor response was received”, they said, adding only two companies participated in the tendering process floated second time. “Now, the Pollution Control Board is planning to float tenders for one more time with the hope to get positive response and at the same time it is going to seek opinion from the Government as to what should be done in case of poor response once again”, sources further said.
They further said, “if the PCB was facing poor response it should have obtained opinion of the Government much earlier so as to facilitate early establishment of Continuous Automatic Air Quality Monitoring Station”, adding “had this been done the station would have been functioning and providing information about real time and peak concentration levels of critical pollutants”.
“Only slackness of the PCB can be held responsible for non-sanctioning of such a monitoring station for Jammu, which otherwise meets the criteria for the same”, sources said, adding “at the time of sanctioning of CAAQMS for Srinagar the PCB should have vociferously and with concrete data convinced the CPCB”.
Expressing inability to specify when such a station would be sanctioned for Jammu, sources said, “the Central Pollution Control Board has, while responding to the request made in this regard, categorically told the PCB that unless it establishes the already sanctioned station no decision can be taken on request with regard to Jammu”.
“All this indicates that determining the quality of air and assessing the effectiveness of the measures taken to check pollutants don’t carry any importance for the concerned authorities in Jammu and Kashmir”, sources remarked, adding “this is notwithstanding the fact that air pollution due to continuous and sharp rise in vehicular population has become a matter of serious concern and becoming major health hazard with every passing year”.
When contacted, Chairman of the Pollution Control Board, Ravi Kesar confirmed that poor response to the tenders was creating obstacles in establishing of CAAQMS in Srinagar. “We are facing peculiar station……we have decided to bring this to the notice of CPCB also for suggesting via-media”, he added.
It is pertinent to mention here that ambient air quality monitoring is imperative to determine the existing quality of air and data of CAAQMS helps in chalking out programmes to minimize the impact of pollution.
Follow our WhatsApp channel