DoE air quality standards

Senior officials involved in the project defend the proposed standards by suggesting that industrial pollution is low compared to that of vehicular pollution, and that it is therefore incumbent upon them to concentrate on reducing the latter, which causes the lion's share of the problems.

But this reasoning is unpersuasive. In the first place, the fact that vehicular emissions are more of a problem than industrial emissions is no justification for setting standards that neglect to rein in industrial emissions. This is not an either/or situation.

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In the second place, it is simply incorrect to suggest by implication that industrial emissions are not a potent health hazard that need to be attended to on a priority basis. The fact of the matter is that industrial emissions from tanneries, brick kilns, and other industries have turned areas of Dhaka city such as Hazaribagh, Rayer Bazar, and Lalbagh into urban nightmares choked with pollution, causing intense respiratory disease and skin problems among the inhabitants.

The suggestion made by a senior official connected with the project that these are localised rather than general problems ignores the disturbing fact that literally millions of people living in close proximity to industries have been negatively affected by the extent of the pollution, and that industrial effluents and smog have a pervasive negative impact far away from the source of the problem.

The AQMP is currently working to set standards for air pollution, but even these would only be used to warn people of the air quality, and not to identify and prosecute polluters. This is not good enough. The DoE urgently needs to go back to the drawing board and enact standards aimed at reducing the level of industrial air pollution without delay.