pollution rate of West Bengal in 2015
Answers
Explanation:
The latest WHO database of more than 4,000 cities across 100 countries for the year 2016 was released on Wednesday at the organization’s headquarters in Geneva. It painted a grim picture for the city. In 2015, the annual mean of PM2.5 (fine particulate matter that leads to high plaque deposits in arteries, which can lead to heart attacks and other cardiovascular problems) of Kolkata was 52µg/m³ (microgram per cubic metre), which climbed to 74µg/m³ in 2016. Significantly, according to WHO, the safe limit of annual mean PM2.5 is 10µg/m³, but by India’s standards, it is 40µg/m³. Alarmingly, the annual mean of PM2.5 in Kolkata is 7 times higher than the global safe limit. According to environmentalists, Kolkata’s air quality is now even worse than what the WHO figures suggest.
In 2017, the city’s pollution rose faster than ever before because of an exponential growth in the number of vehcles, construction activities and biomass burning, three key causes of air pollution. “The WHO report is a clarion call for all of us to wake from our slumber and do something drastic to improve the city’s air quality,” said environmentalist Subhas Datta, who has kept pricking the conscience of the city by his numerous litigations in the National Green Tribunal (NGT).