Telangana Govt urged to enact Air Quality Act

Khairatabad: The one-day seminar on 'Air pollution and its impact on safety and health at work' held at Institution of Engineers here on Tuesday called for enactment of a law – Air Quality Act – to implement measures to free the air of pollutants. This was mooted by Durga Prasad Dora, DGM, Toshiba Plant and Services, at the seminar on the raging issue which is of serious concern to all.

Dora opined that 'Air Pollution' regulations are not like 'issue of licence' to run a factory, which can be generically applicable to all industries across India. Generic air pollution standards for a country like India are not feasible. They have to be made specific to the place of work, specific to environmental conditions of the location of work. Air pollution has to be dynamic keeping in view kind, nature and scale of work, he said.

S D Mukherji, a retired IFS officer, stated that Fossil foul was the reason for the 85% of air pollution. Whatever forest we have in our country is fading away. There is a large-scale destruction of natural resources. The initiative of Telangana government – Haritha Haram – to plant crores of saplings is laudatory. However, measures are needed to arrest growing occurrence of environment pollution. Protection of environment from pollution is the dire necessity which we can ignore at our own peril.

JNTU Professor Dr KM lakshman Rao recommended a new measure of pollution identification at the conference. About 7 million people die due to air pollution alone as they are afflicted by asthma, lung issues and other respiratory diseases.

Industries are growing and the power supply is much-needed, and to produce more power we depend on fossil fuels like coal, but it significantly adds to environment pollution. Air pollution is a dangerous issue every one needs to be concerned about. Every day great quantities of garbage are produced, which can be used as solid fuel for power generation, the speakers felt.

Dr G Rameshwar Rao, Chairman of Institution of Engineers (India), T Anjaiah, Secretary, IEI, Dr P Narayan Rao, Member of AP Pollution Control Board, and others were present.