AHMEDABAD The people of Ahmedabad may soon find information on air pollution levels flashing on LED boards on the city roads, along with accompanying messages asking them to take precautions. This is part of the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation’s (AMC) new health-based initiative to reduce the adverse impact of rising air pollution on the city’s seven million residents.
The civic body is launching a comprehensive Air Quality Index (AQI) and Air Information and Response (AIR) plan that would include an air pollution alert system and health risk communication based on real-time data.
“The initiative, the first of its kind, involves five key factors: health risk communication, inter-agency coordination, capacity-building of the medical staff, targeted activities for vulnerable groups such as school children, senior citizens, and people with asthma or lung disease, and research on mitigation pathways,” said Anjali Jaiswal, a senior official in the Natural Resources Defense Council (NDRC), which has partnered with AMC to launch the new program.
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According to the plan, eight air quality monitors in Ahmedabad and two in Gandhinagar will collect data on smog and toxic pollutants and feed it into the system which would generate the AQI. This would then be used to inform residents on when to take precautions so that they can minimise exposure to harm.
When the AQI is designated as “very poor” (301-400), it triggers a health alert, which would be disseminated by the civic body through various communication channels, including social media platforms and traditional media, and also displayed in colour-coded messages on a dozen large LED screens installed across the city.
The AQI is supported by technical expertise from the Pune-based Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology and the Indian Meteorological Department’s System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research (SAFAR), which operate the AQI in Delhi, Pune and Mumbai.
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“Ahmedabad’s AIR plan is based on global best practices on AQI health risk communication from Beijing, Los Angeles, Mexico City, and New Delhi. With this, we want to prove that you can have clean air and prosperity without compromising on the health of the communities living in the city,” said Ms Jaiswal.