Recommendations given to address air pollution

Kolkata: The high-power advisory committee constituted by the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) in the month of November last year to address pollution issues has already submitted its recommendations on curbing vehicular pollution which is a major cause of pollution in the city. The 16-page report submitted to Municipal Commissioner Khalil Ahmed

states both short-term and long-term steps, which may be adopted to check air pollution in the city. The report on other aspects of environmental pollution will follow based on which the civic body will prepare an action plan.

According to the report, the primary job of the state should be to ensure that all vehicles have PUC (Pollution Under Control). The Transport department in collaboration with the Traffic wing should put the list of vehicles without PUC in online mode and owners of those vehicles should be contacted and requested to get PUC done within seven days failing which strict action may be taken as per law. The coverage of on-road inspection of vehicular emission should be enhanced substantially. Considering the vast road network and traffic volume, more basic emission checking infrastructure should be deployed to ensure a minimum weekly coverage of 20 locations in the city.

The report prepared by Bhargab Maitra, professor of Civil Engineering department at IIT Kharagpur, has laid emphasis on having free vehicle-checking camps with the help of leading manufacturers and distributors at different locations of the city at frequent intervals. It further suggests mandatory checking facility of commercial vehicles entering the city. A minimum of 10 such facility centres should come up on the highways at least 20 km away from the toll plaza so that an extensive testing arrangement can be made for the commercial vehicles entering Kolkata and Howrah.

According to data available with the Union Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, the number of registered vehicles in Kolkata was around 16 lakh in 2002 which has increased to 84 lakh in 2017 — an increase of more than five times in the last 15 years but the road space has been constant with only 7 percent of the total area of the city naturally resulting in emission leading to unchecked pollution. The report has cited uncontrolled vehicular growth, coupled with capacity reduction because of encroachment, on-road parking and prolonged construction work as some of the major reasons behind vehicular emission leading to air pollution in the city.

The report also calls for increase of public awareness.