Forget Delhi, Srinagar pollution levels reach alarming proportion

SRINAGAR:  Forget Delhi, Srinagar is fast turning into a noxious gas chamber.

Pollution Control Board (PCB) data accessed by The Kashmir Monitor revealed that the Respirable Suspended Particulate Matter (RSPM or PM 10) levels at three stations have more than doubled in 2021-22. 

At the Raj Bagh station, the yearly average of PM-10 level is 139.26 against the standard limits of 2.5-40 ug/m3. Likewise, PM-10 level at Khonmoh station was recorded at 162.86 ug/m3.   Similarly, PM-10 level at Khrew was recorded at 132.65 ug/m3 in 2021-22. At Lasjan, RSPM (PM 10) level was 227.80 ug/m3.

Data from 2020-21 reveal that the RSPM levels at Raj Bagh, Khonmoh, Khrew, and Lasjan were 89.61 ug/m3, 163.97 ug/m3, 127.98 ug/m3 and 235.29 ug/m3 respectively.  In 2019-20,  the RSPM levels at Raj Bagh, Khonmoh, Khrew, and Lasjan were 73.88 ug/m3, 12-.03 ug/m3, 119.48 ug/m3, and 197.74 ug/m3 respectively.

Data collected by Jammu and Kashmir Pollution Control Board (PCB) from April 2018 to March 2019 revealed that the average Respirable Suspended Particulate Matter (PM 10) in the air near SKIMS, Soura was 72.69 micrograms per cubic meter, 32 micrograms more than the permissible limit. According to PCB, the permissible limit of RSPM for 24 hours is 60 micrograms per cubic meter while its limit for the whole year is 40 micrograms per cubic meter.

Earlier, the COVID lockdown had healed nature as air quality had shown a dramatic improvement in Kashmir. Data compiled by the Pollution Control Board (PCB), Kashmir, revealed that air pollution levels have dropped by more than 20 percent in Kashmir from March to August 2020. Figures compiled by the PCB suggested that the air pollution recorded before the imposition of lockdown in February stood at 50ug/m3 which in June had dropped to 32ug/m3.

“NASA has declared its gas chamber. ISRO has declared it a gas chamber. New studies have described Srinagar as a gas chamber. It will cause a lot of lung diseases down the line. There are more than 98 components related to air pollution. We are landlocked and the pollutions remain on the first layer of the atmosphere. These pollutants do not exit the valley because of our topography,” said Nadeem Qadri, environmental lawyer, and Co-convener, Environmental Policy Group.

Call it pollution fallout, lung cancer has emerged as the most common carcinoma in Kashmir in the last five years. A study conducted by Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences, Srinagar,  lung cancer account for 10. 6 percent of all carcinomas in the valley. “The other four cancers reported at the regional cancer center at the institute were esophagus (9.1%), stomach (9.0%), breast (6.0%), and colon (3.8%),” the study said.

“Ninety-nine percent of the condemned vehicles are finding their way either in Punjab or Jammu and Kashmir. These vehicles were condemned after NGT orders. It contributed to the pollution in Jammu and Kashmir,” said Qadri.