Winter pollution has been a major problem for Northern India and parts of India where factories and industries are hubs. The dense smoky particles mix with the chilly wintry fog and create a hazardous layer of smog. The condition has been prevailing for ages in Northern India. However, the condition has now been seen in parts of Odisha as well.
Not only our state Odisha but also states like Bihar and West Bengal are getting into this hazardous gulf of winter pollution. As per the report of the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), the winter smog has been affecting parts of Odisha, Bengal, and Bihar since the end of November and can continue till late February.
“This analysis of real-time air quality data for the period 2019-2021 shows that the downward dip in the pollution that was induced by the hard lockdown phases of the pandemic in 2020 is threatening to bounce back with the levels in 2021 already rising. But in many cases, the levels are still lower than in 2019. This underscores the urgency of scaling up the action across all sectors to prevent further worsening and to arrest the trend in this region,” said executive director, research and advocacy at CSE, Anumita Roychowdhury.
“Even though real-time air quality monitoring has begun to expand in these states to provide more up-to-date and real-time information on air quality, there are serious concerns around missing data and gaps that make proper risk assessment difficult. In some stations of Bihar and Odisha, data availability is so low that the trend cannot be assessed. Quality control of data is necessary,” said the program manager at Urban Data Analytics Lab, CSE, Avikal Somvanshi.
