Following the international community’s increasing interest in clean air, and emphasizing the need to make further efforts to improve air quality to protect human health, the United Nations General Assembly has designated 7 September as the International Day of Clean Air for blue skies. The theme for this year’s International Day of Clean Air for blue skies is “Healthy Air, Healthy Planet” which emphasizes the health effects of air pollution, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic.
HP State Pollution Control Board aims to promote cleanliness of air environment by prevention, control and abatement of air pollution in the State under the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981. Air Quality Monitoring is an important part of the air quality management. A total of 25 monitoring stations have been established under National Air Monitoring Programme (NAMP) with the objective to determine the present air quality status and to control & regulate pollution from industries and other sources to meet the air quality standards. Consent to Establish is granted to any industry after evaluation of the potential air pollution, engineering design and details of the systems proposed for controlling the air pollution.
To commemorate the occasion, the Central Pollution Control Board Delhi has launched a web-portal namely PRANA (Portal for Regulation of Air Pollution in Non-Attainment Cities) on 7th September 2021, which may be accessed on https://dev-ncap.knowledgelens.com/#/NCAPTracker. It is pertinent to note that cities are declared non-attainment if over a 5 year period they persistently do not meet the National Ambient Air Quality standards (NAAQS) for PM10. There are seven non-attainment towns/cities in Himachal Pradesh namely Baddi, Parwanoo, Kala Amb, Paonta Sahib, Nalagarh, Sundernagar and Damtal. The State Board has prepared action plan of each non-attainment town of the State in consultation with all stakeholder departments of the State with the aim to curb air pollution of these towns in a time bound manner.
To commemorate the International Day of Clean Air for blue skies, HP State Pollution Control Board has organised a virtual awareness meet with our regional offices and other important stakeholders of air pollution control of non-attainment towns on 7th September 2921 and to ensure effective implementation of Action Plan to improve air quality of non-attainment towns. In addition, the different Regional Offices have also organized vehicle monitoring camps in association with RTO & Local Police to conduct Pollution check, PUC check, Fuel adulteration, Pressure horn, Noise pollution check (silencer check) at different places of non-attainment towns of the State to commemorate the occasion suitably.
