Air Quality Index for cities in offing

The government has decided to introduce a national Air Quality Index (AQI) to identify the level of air pollution in the country's cities.

"We have already sent a draft of the Air Quality Index to the Ministry of Environment and Forests for assessment," Dr M Nasir Uddin, project director of the Department of Environment's Clean Air and Sustainable Environment (CASE) project, told the news agency.

The AQI is a tool that reports the air quality of any city or country daily. It tells how clean or polluted the air is, and what associated health effects might be a concern for public. The AQI focuses on health effects that one might experience within a few hours or days after breathing polluted air.

Globally, AQI is used as an effective tool to build public awareness and support for aggressive action for pollution control and bring down daily peak pollution levels.

"Bangladesh is working to launch the index when the air quality in major cities is fast deteriorating in the absence of a national policy to combat the rising pollution," Dr Nasir said.

The DoE is seriously considering launching a national AQI for the country seeing that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi released the AQI and health alert for public information for his country on April 6 in 2015, according to a senior official of the DoE.

The government with support from the World Bank is implementing the CASE project.

Dr Nasir Uddin, also joint secretary of the environment and forests ministry, said the CASE project is currently releasing AQI daily on an experimental basis.

The project has established 11 Continuous Air Monitoring Stations (CAMS) in the country's eight cities to keep track of air pollution levels. The CAMS operates round the clock with expected data capture rate of 85 percent.

The data generated by CAMS is also being used in planning and implementing other development projects, official sources said.