Lack of monitoring, effective steps blamed
Air pollution in Dhaka city is getting more intense and is staying for periods much longer than it did nine years ago amid a serious lack of pragmatic measure to control the sources of air pollution, increasingly posing public health threats.
According to the available air quality monitoring data, the city鈥檚 air has steadily worsened since 2016 both in terms of quality and duration of stay except the Covid-19 period when the government imposed restrictions on public mobility.
Air quality monitoring data shows that in leap year 2024, Dhaka city residents experienced unhealthy air for a staggering 216 days out of 366 days compared with 92 days in 2016.
The Centre for Atmospheric Pollution Studies analysed the air pollution data in the past nine years to find that the average score in the air quality index in Dhaka was 171 in 2024 that was 150 in 2016.
Air quality index scores between 151 and 200 mean 鈥榰nhealthy鈥� air in which bigger scores indicate worse quality.聽
The AQI value for particle pollution鈥攁 term indicating a mixture of solid particles and liquid droplets in the air鈥攂etween 101 and 150 indicates the air is 鈥榰nhealthy for sensitive groups鈥�,
between 151 and 200 indicates it is 鈥榰nhealthy鈥�, between 201 and 300 indicates 鈥榲ery unhealthy鈥� air, while 301+ is considered 鈥榟azardous鈥� that poses serious health risks to residents.
According to a latest World Bank report titled 鈥楤reathing heavy: New Evidence on Air Pollution and Health in Bangladesh鈥�, air pollution was the second largest risk factor leading to deaths and disability in Bangladesh. Around 78,000鈥�88000 people died in 2019 in Bangladesh due to health hazards caused by air pollution.
Bangladesh鈥檚 economic losses from air pollution are estimated between 3.9 and 4.4 per cent of the country鈥檚 gross domestic product in 2019.
According to the report, 28 per cent polluted air generated from biomass burning, 24 per cent from power plants, 12 per cent from brick kilns, 11 per cent from open burning of waste materials, 8 per cent from dust and 13 per cent from other sources.
Centre for Atmospheric Pollution Studies director Professor Kamruzzaman Mazumder said that pollution soared because new sources of pollution added with the existing ones in the absence of a strict monitoring mechanism.
Environment, forest and climate change adviser Syeda Rizwana Hasan termed air pollution control as a time consuming issue.
She said that the government, having set the air pollution control among its top priority issues, had been seriously at work.
She also put impetus on improving the fuel quality and increasing the refinery capacity for improving the air quality.
鈥楤angladesh must adopt a long-term strategy to combat pollution effectively,鈥� Rizwana said.
A director of the Department of Environment Ziaul Haque said that they were conducting mobile courts against the polluters and already shut down several hundred brick kilns and fined industries and vehicles for polluting air.
鈥楨veryone is affected by air pollution to some extent,鈥� he said.
The department conducted 220 mobile court drives against the air polluters and filed 567 cases in a year until January 25, 2025. Around Tk 8 crore was realised in fines and punitive actions taken against over 150 brick kilns, said the department officials.
Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University respiratory medicine professor Mohammed Atiqur Rahman said that air pollution is directly responsible for respiratory diseases, while it aggravates many other illnesses and co-morbidity.
Asthma, pneumonia, tuberculosis, bronchitis, skin diseases, diarrhoea and conjunctivitis are among the diseases triggered or aggravated by air pollution.
According to the data from the National Institute of Diseases of the Chest and Hospital, 1,76,441 patients received healthcare in the specialised hospital and research centre in 2023, and 1,046 of them died while undergoing treatment.
In 2022, total 947 people died in hospital, while 1,62,780 people received healthcare.
Public health experts said that air pollution was linked to roughly half of the premature deaths in Bangladesh.
A global study released in August 2023 by the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago found Bangladesh鈥檚 air to be the most polluted globally, gravely impacting citizens鈥� health and reducing average life expectancy by at least 6.8 years.
