"Zero" good air quality days last year in Varanasi, Allahabad:

The holy city of Varanasi along with Allahabad had "zero" good air quality days last year, a new report has said while underlining the need for urgent regional action plan to improve air quality in North India.
The report said that out of the 227 days of recorded data on air pollution, Varanasi, the constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi had "zero" good air quality days last year while out of 263 days, Allahabad had "zero" good air quality days.
The report, launched by Centre for Environment and Energy Development (CEED), IndiaSpend and Care4Air, bases its findings on Central Pollution Control Board's 2015 dataset and concludes that heavy industrial activity across the Indo-Gangetic belt has led to rapid degradation of air quality across north Indian region.

"Urgent regional action plan is required to improve air quality in the north Indian region," it said
It said that World Health Organisation listed 10 Indian cities from the top 20 most polluted cities of the world. From these 10 Indian cities, 4 are heavily populated cities of Uttar Pradesh.
"WHO report mentions Allahabad, Kanpur, Firozabad and Lucknow and leaves out Varanasi which is one among India's three most polluted cities according to CPCB bulletin (2015). Varanasi needs a surgical strike on air quality.

"Child specialists when consulted have concluded that there is an 8-fold rise in the respiratory ailments in the city and have cited the rising air pollution levels as the key cause," said Aishwarya Madineni - author of the report - "Varanasi Chokes", which was launched during a air quality workshop, "Lifting the Smog".

Despite being one of the most polluted cities in India, Varanasi lacks adequate air quality monitoring stations as compared to Delhi. "Only one online air quality monitor, capable of measuring PM2.5 and PM10, has been installed while no AQI score is available for the city.
"In comparison, Delhi has 13 online monitoring stations capable of measuring PM10 and PM2.5 and an AQI score is available everyday. RTI on manual air quality stations in Varanasi revealed significant gaps in PM10 values being recorded" the report said.
The author of the report who spoke to several doctors
based in Varanasi learnt that lungs related ailments in children have increased 8-folds while cases of asthma and breathlessness have increased by 20-25 per cent.

"Air pollution has caused an 8-fold increase in respiratory illness in the children of Varanasi and the respiratory problems are at their worst in the winters," the report quoted Pradeep Jindal, a child specialist in the Sigra area of Varanasi as saying.
R N Vajpayee, a pulmonologist and practicing chest physician in the Lanka area of Varanasi, said that there has been 20-25 per cent increase in cases of asthma and breathlessness.
"Government has to take responsibility for public health, issuing health advisories is an important task. Hopefully there will be awareness in the public soon which will result in government action," he said.

The workshop brought together experts on air pollution mitigation, health, professors as well as government officials.
Sagnik Dey, Assistant Professor IIT Delhi - Centre for Atmospheric Sciences, said that industry and power plants are not the only two sources.
"In fact, biomass burning (seasonal), household emission (biofuel), vehicular emission, brick kilns, DG sets, etc have also large contribution to air pollution in the Indo-Gangetic region.
"It is also observed that health burden due to household exposure is much larger compared to ambient exposure and that is where large health benefit is expected," he said.