Political apathy can’t save Dhaka from pollution

We are appalled by a news report published in a national daily on Saturday that air pollution causes more deaths than diseases like tuberculosis and AIDS in the country. Even though it does not cause sudden death, it gradually affects the capital’s residents with various diseases. As a result, it is becoming a silent killer. In fact, this dire situation is due to the negligence of the government agencies responsible for cleaning the air.
According to the report, for 23 of the first 24 days of this month, the city’s air was so bad that it was called hazardous. The air in the neighbouring cities of Dhaka such as Narayanganj, Savar and Gazipur is still more polluted than the capital. This highly polluted air is regularly entering the bodies of residents and thus their life expectancy is reduced by seven to eight years.
Dhaka was the top city in the world for polluted air for the last six days (from Friday to Thursday). According to Air Visual, an international organisation that monitors the air quality of the world’s major cities, the air temperature in Dhaka city was 183 on Saturday evening, which was alarmingly unhealthy. Planning and development research and policy analysis institute ‘Institute for Planning and Development (IPD)’ organised a review meeting yesterday to determine the reasons for such a situation and what to do.
Urban, environment and health experts opined if it were in other developed countries of the world, a special alert would have been issued there. But in Bangladesh, we have nothing to say but only to be worried watching that there is a lack of government initiatives to prevent air pollution in Dhaka.
The causes of air pollution are identified, and no shortage of regulations to prevent air pollution is visible in our laws, but unfortunately, they are not implemented. Again, a law especially related to toxic air was drafted, but the final version of this law was not formulated in the end. This shows that the government is not considering air pollution an emergency to eliminate soon.
We must say there is no way of ignoring public health for a government of people’s welfare. Unplanned development for a planned illegal interest cannot protect the citizens from the hazard of awkward pollution. But who bothers when all are gripped silently in poisonous politics?