Bhubaneswar: Odisha has seven towns, where air quality improvement program has been implemented and those are Rourkela, Talcher, Anugul, Balasore, Kalingnagar, Cuttack and Bhubaneswar.
Along with this, there is a proposal to include towns like Rajgangpur, Jharsuguda, Belpahad, Bonai, Keonjhar, Anugul, Kalingnagar, in the clean air program of the state.
The 5th state level management committee meeting related to clean air program and air quality status has been held this morning at Lok Seva Bhawan under the chairmanship of the committee’s Chief Secretary Manoj Ahuja.
Additional Chief Secretary, Department of Revenue and Forests, Environment and Climate Change, Satyabrat Sahu, Additional Chief Secretary, Department of Home & Steel and Mines, Deo Ranjan Kumar Singh, Department of Panchayatiraj & Drinking Water, Sushil Kumar Lohani, were present in the meeting.
Member Secretary Odisha State Pollution Control Board (OSPCB) K Murugesan and other Members of the committee were present.
Dr.Murugesan outlined the discussion in the Management Committee.
Currently, due to the continuous construction activities, increasing the amount of waste material, increase in industrial activities, increase in vehicular traffic, indiscriminate burning of waste in the open and air pollution in winter due to the increase in air pollution levels are hindering the improvement of air quality.
With this in mind, the National Clean Air Program (NCAP) was launched in India in 2019 and aims to improve air quality standards in various cities across the country.
A National Knowledge Network has been developed in Kanpur for the National Clean Air Program and Air Quality Improvement, which is coordinating and building the capacity of partner institutions and organizations working in this field.
Odisha has state level management committee, air quality monitoring committee and district level monitoring committee. In the meeting, the current state of air quality in various cities in the state was assessed.
In the meeting, details were presented regarding the utilization of NCAP funds and how to strengthen the monitoring system in the clean air program in the next 2 years, adoption of the program on a specific regional basis, etc. were discussed.
Chief Secretary has emphasized on proper study of the air quality situation in various cities and good practices of other cities in the country with good air quality status and in coordination with various partner organizations to increase the air quality in the cities identified as NCAP cities of Odisha.