Other than the residents experiencing cough, respiratory diseases and worse, the monitoring levels are highly dangerous, being stated in the report. One example included in the report is that the PM2.5 concentrations in the location of New Delhi Anand Vihar station have reached 427 micrograms per cubic meter on Friday and 535 micrograms per cubic meter at Ahmedabad's Maninagar station on Saturday. The levels were well above 24-guidance of micrograms per cubic meter of the World Health Organization.Given in a written statement to the Parliament, the Minister State for Health and Family Welfare Anupriya Patel referred the India-Diagnostic Assessment of Select Environmental Challenges in the report by the World Bank. In the report, it was found that the total damage caused by the environmental degradation results to Rs, 3.75 trillion, which is approximately equal to about 5.7 percent of the India's GDP.
In exertion and energy to protect localities from the increasing air pollution levels, the AMC is creating a health-based program for outreach around the AQI made and developed by the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune (IITM) and SAFAR (System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research. AQI systems are already working in the main cities in India together with the area of Delhi, Mumbai, and Pune, among others as well as the international locations. The Ahmedabad AQI is arranged and planned to be officially launched in early 2017.
To be able to make the program, the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation Commissioner Shri Mukesh Kumar and Mayor Shri Gautam Shah participated by international public health and air pollution experts from the Indian Institute of Public Health-Gandhinangar (IIPH-G), Natural Resources Defense Council (NDRC) and the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune (IITM) are going held an activity workshop for two days on "Air Pollution & Health: Laying the Foundation for Effective Use of the Ahmedabad's Air Quality Index" this week according to Times of India.
NRDC and partners, IIPH-G, are collaborating their work with the AMC on information, education, and communication strategies for the new AQI being launched in Ahmedabad. The joint efforts of the government agencies, health professionals, and community leaders can work and serve to effectively announce the public about the rising and increasing air pollution health risks in India, and on how to progress in protecting the community and the individual health.
The new Ahmedabad program concentrates on air quality alerts and advisories, interagency coordination, public awareness and community outreach, and assessing health impacts and monitoring to reinforce activities. The interagency coordination, alerts, and outreach are demonstrated on the active Heat Action Plan by the city that has now ascended to 11 cities in 2016 and potentially leading states in the coming year.
The new program is also made to assimilate health and pollution control strategies with the Gujarat Pollution Control Board's "City Clean Air Plan for Ahmedabad". GPCB added a broader comprehensive strategy for emissions controls. The program also integrates knowledge exchange components with New Delhi and other cities. Ahmedabad is probing media strategies used in New Delhi on health risk communication and outreach to create its program.
The new curriculum in Ahmedabad also builds on examples from Beijing, Los Angeles, and Mexico City. By planning locally based on the local knowledge, the method can then assimilate into the larger central and state framework much like Los Angeles program in California together with the federal government in the United States. Representations like Los Angeles and Mexico City illustrates how local change can make broader influences to progress and improve larger air quality systems.
The government is making efforts to control air pollution by formulating environmental regulations, setting up of a monitoring network for assessment of ambient air quality and promoting cleaner production processes, said by the Health Minister Patel said in Parliament. Ahmedabad's is seriously in their approach by assimilating the AQI, health-based community outreach, and emissions control strategies monitored by the Gujarat State Pollution Control Board. The workshop and meetings this week boost the events to plan a course to clean air for communities across Ahmedabad that then can be usefully applied to other cities in India.
