TS, AP not in WHO list of polluted cities

ENVIRONMENTALISTS STATE that the humidity in southern states has helped most states escape from the red line of pollution.

Telangana and Andhra Pradesh are lucky to be not in the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) report of most polluted cities on a global scale. The State Pollution Control Board said that repeated efforts for the past seven years helped control the level of particulate matter.

P. Veeranna, a chief scientist officer at Telangana State Pollution Control Board, said that they had installed air quality monitoring stations to ensure that the data is available to the public and they are working on installing more such air quality monitoring stations.

“It is sad to note that some cities are exceeding our annual average but we are trying to maintain our annual average which has been decreasing consistently for the past two years,” he said.

The Pollution Control Board officials said that citizen’s awareness needs to grow. “We have encouraged citizens to make more use of public transport to reduce road congestion. There has been no drastic increase in the annual average use. However, there is still a long way to go to increase the quality of air,” a Pollution Control Board official said.

Environmentalists state that the humidity in southern states has helped most states escape from the red line of pollution. However, there stills needs to be a check on the same.

Dr Babu Rao, former Chief Scientist at the Indian Institute of Chemical Technology said that controlling the number of vehicles and ensuring that heavy vehicles do not enter highly polluted areas is a must. “Air quality once lost cannot be restored in a short period of time and PM 2.5 is harmful for all ages, not just for people who have sensitive breathing problems,” he said.