A breath of poisonous air

For those of us who live in Dhaka and breathe its air, it's hardly shocking news anymore that the city is one of the most polluted in the world. Over the past several weeks, Dhaka has topped the list of the worst offenders on multiple occasions, with its Air Quality Index (AQI) score beating that of China's Wuhan or India's New Delhi. Even then, we are shocked by a recently published report that highlights that in the last six years, Dhaka has had clean air for only 38 days! The study, conducted by Stamford University's Center for Atmospheric Pollution Studies from 2016 to 2021, states that the average AQI score in Dhaka was 219, which falls in the category of "extremely unhealthy," when the permissible AQI score is 0-50.

According to the study, unplanned and uncontrolled road-cutting and construction cause the most air pollution (30 percent), followed by brick kilns and factories (29 percent) and black smoke from vehicles (15 percent). It is inconceivable how we have allowed ourselves to reach this horrifying state, and worse still, that we seem to have accepted this as the status quo. Despite the deteriorating AQI readings year after year, we have done alarmingly little to address the pressing and persistent causes of air pollution. At a conference on Thursday, Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC) Mayor Sheikh Fazle Noor Taposh admitted that Dhaka was the most polluted city in the world, and that they were "working to get rid of the problem." As part of the public who are breathing in this poisonous air every day, we demand to know the details of such plans, along with a timeline of how long it would take before we can take a breath of fresh air again.

The High Court on November 24, 2021 issued nine instructions to the Department of Environment (DoE), two city corporations and the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) to make sure that waste-carrying vehicles, construction materials and construction sites are covered with tarpaulin, and that water is sprinkled on the streets of Dhaka to control air pollution. It is evident that these instructions are not being followed, and that the authorities are, yet again, failing to monitor the implementation of these directives. Who will monitor the authorities? It's high time they were held accountable for their consistent failure to make Dhaka liveable and breathable for more than 20 million people.

According to the Environment Conservation Act, 1995, when air quality deteriorates to such a level as it has in Dhaka, the DoE must issue a public warning about the associated health hazards. No such warning has been issued by the authorities, which, as highlighted by Bangladesh Poribesh Andolon (Bapa), "indicates their sheer negligence." With over 10,000 people dying in Dhaka alone every year due to air pollution, and another 153,000 across the country (as per World Bank data), the authorities must recognise and treat it as a state of emergency requiring urgent attention.