New tool launched to create awareness about quality of air

New Delhi Amid concerns over rising pollution in Indian cities a new tool was launched today that aims to create awareness among people about the quality of air they breathe as well as its likely health impactThe national Air Quality Index AQI launched by Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar proposes six AQIcategories namely good satisfactory moderately polluted poor very poor and severe and is likely to be operational initially in the countrys million plus cities by midDecemberNarendra ModiNoting that the formulation of the index was a continuation of the initiatives under Swachh Bharat Missionenvisioned by Prime Minister Narendra Modi Javadekar said the government would make clean air also a peoples campaignIt wont be business as usual In future we will act differently we will succeed and we will take people along he said This Air Quality Index is now open we are starting with million plus cities but definitely will go further deeper and we will start simultaneous action programmes in collaboration with states he saidJavadekar outlined the AQI which has categories with elegant colour scheme beginning from green and ending in dark red as One Number One ColourOne Description for the common man to judge the air quality within his vicinityThe objective of an AQI is to quickly disseminate air quality information almost in realtime that entails thesystem to account for pollutants which have shortterm impacts the Central Pollution Control Board CPCB said The proposed AQI will consider eight pollutants PM10 PM25 NO2 SO2 CO O3 NH3 and Pb for which short term up to 24hourly averaging period National Ambient Air Quality Standards are prescribedEight pollutants having shortterm standards have been considered for near realtime dissemination of AQIAQI a CPCB initiative was developed by an expert group comprising medical professionals air quality experts academia NGOs and state pollution control boards IIT Kanpur which conducted the technical study and the expert group have recommended the AQI schemeThe proposed AQI will consider eight pollutants PM10 PM25 NO2 SO2 CO O3 NH3 and Pb for which shortterm up to 24hourly averaging period National Ambient Air Quality Standards are prescribedBased on the measured ambient concentrations corresponding standards and likely health impact a subindex is calculated for each of these pollutantsThe worst subindex reflects overall AQI Javadekar said that the index constituted part of the governments mission to introduce the culture of cleanliness In order to widen the ambit of the culture of cleanlinessthe ministry proposed to discuss the issues concerned regarding quality of air with the HRD Ministry in order to include this topic as part of the sensitisation programme in the course curriculumUnder the new measurement process Javadekar said that an effort has been made to include a comprehensive set of parameters While the earlier measuring index was limited to three indicators the current measurement index had been made quite comprehensive by the addition of five additional parametersUnder the current measurement of air quality eight parameters The initiatives undertaken by the ministry recently aimed at balancing environment and conservation and development Air pollution has been a matter of environmental and health concerns particularly in urban areasCPCB along with state pollution control boards has been operating National Air Monitoring Program NAMP covering 240 cities In addition continuous monitoring systems that provide data on near realtime basis are also installed in a few cities Traditionally air quality status has been reported through voluminous data Thus it was important that information on air quality is put up in public domain in simple linguistic terms that is easily understood by a common person