Valley on the verge of choking with air pollution
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KATHMANDU: Health experts have warned that the Kathmandu Valley could turn into a city of cardiac and chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases in next five years if nothing is done immediately to curb air pollution.
Kathmandu is the fourth worst polluted city with 101.05 points, according to Pollution Index 2014, after Xi’an, China (101.90), Kingston, Jamaica (103.45) and Accra, Ghana (111.18). The government, however, has failed to provide the status of air quality of the city, which is home to 2.51 million people.
“Hospitals here have an overflow of patients with major respiratory ailments such as COPD, bronchial asthma, ENT problems, eye ailments and other related symptoms, including cough, phlegm, breathlessness and wheezing,” senior chest physician Dr Dirgha Singh Bam, also a former health secretary, said. “If no steps are taken, Kathmandu will soon become a city of COPD and cardiac patients.” Submit
The government, on the other hand, lacks a clear policy on combating air pollution. “We don’t have any specific plan or policy to tackle the situation,” Dr Yubak Dhoj GC, Director General of the Department
of Environment under the Ministry of Science and
Technology, said. He conceded that his department has failed to monitor the air pollutants. “Only three ambient air monitoring stations are operational,” he said. “Other four are gathering dust.”
The department does not have updated data on ambient air quality that is measured in different pollutant levels — particulate matter (PM2.5
and PM10), total suspended particulate (TSP), carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), sulfur dioxide (SO2), lead and benzene.
“Three stations — Putalisadak, Machchegaun and Bhaktapur — have been only recording PM10 data, which is not enough to calculate the air quality level,” GC said. “Vehicle emissions contribute 40 per cent to PM10.”
Air monitoring stations, set up in 2002 with the help of the Danish government, have not been maintained properly since 2005 when the Danish project ended.
Vehicular emissions and emissions of re-suspended dust from poorly maintained and uncleaned roads jointly contributed 65 per cent to PM10 in the Valley. Two-stroke gasoline and diesel engines are high pollutant emitters here, followed by brick kilns and industrial causes.
The Valley has an average of 310 micrograms per cubic metre PM10, which is 190 units above the National Ambient Air Quality Standard 2012.
“People may not fall over and die in the street, but it can be the last link in the chain,” Dr Bam said.
National Health Research Council earlier estimated that more than 1,600 people in the Kathmandu Valley die due to air pollution every year. “The figure could go up as a comprehensive research on impact of air pollution is still under way,” NHRC Chief Executive Dr Gunaraj Lohani said.
According to a traffic police report, over 50 traffic personnel working in the Valley were found suffering from acute headache, respiratory and allergic problems on daily basis.
If the Valley can reduce air pollution to a safe level, the annual welfare gain to an individual can be around Rs 266 per year and if extrapolated to the total population, the monetary benefits would be Rs 315 million per year, according to a study by South Asian Network for Development and Environmental Economics.
The World Health Organisation recently said that air pollution claimed seven million lives around the world in 2012, more than one-third of those deaths occurred in Asian nations.
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