‘Concrete policy needed to address poor air quality’

VARANASI : Experts and environmentalists from across the globe shared concerns over the deteriorating air quality in India and laid emphasis on making a concrete policy for addressing the issue. They also shared their own ideas to find a solution to the problem.

Many experts are attending the three-day fifth Asian air pollution workshop that got under way at the Banaras Hindu University on Tuesday. The experts from several countries, who attended the workshop on the opening day, shared their ideas and exchanged views on a series of issues related to air pollution. In his keynote address, Prof Shyam Lal of the National Physical Laboratory, Ahmedabad, expressed concern over deteriorating air quality in India.

“There is a need of making a concrete policy to tackle the menace,” he said. Prof Zhaozhong Feng from Nanjing University of Information of Information Science and Technology, China, talked about the ways China adopted for the improvement of air quality there, specifically fine particulate matter.

He also spoke of increasing tropospheric ozone and also threw a light on significant losses of wheat, rice and soybean yield due to ambient ozone. Director of Institute of Science, BHU, Prof AK Tripathi said India can learn from Japan and China which successfully maintained air quality despite having a high density of population.

Expressing concerns over forest fires not only in India but also in other parts of the globe, Tripathi called for greater efforts to address the challenge.

Prof Kazuhiko Kobayashi from Tokyo University stressed on the need to build a network of scientists and ideas to address the issue of air pollution in Asia.