Khulna city grapples with polluted air; COPD, asthma patients on the rise

UNB, Khulna :
Dhaka has long been grappling with severe air pollution. Air quality in some other major cities in Bangladesh including Khulna continues to deteriorate, posing serious health risks to the residents.
It’s been a year since World Health Organization launched a project to transform Khulna into a healthier city. Besides, Khulna City Corporation and other agencies concerned are also working to make the city a healthy one by 2027.
However, air pollution remains the biggest challenge in achieving that goal. Although the air quality has been comparatively tolerable in the past few days, Khulna’s overall air quality in the past few months has been ‘Unhealthy’.
Experts and officials concerned said dust from construction sites, smoke from old vehicles, and use of toxic fuel are the major reasons behind the polluted air of the city.
As construction and renovation works are going on in different parts of the city the level of air pollution has increased, they said.
At the Boyra intersection in the city, air pollution levels in the city are being measured round-the-clock from the Continuous Air Monitoring Stations (CAMS) of the Department of Environment, which is published every day in the form of a report on CAMS’ website.
According to CAMS’ observation, Khulna’s air quality was ‘extremely unhealthy’ in November and December last. On February 15, the CAMS cited the city’s air quality as ‘extremely unhealthy’ once again.
In addition, the air quality on March 17 and 18 was substantially worse than usual.
Experts say that the normal value of particulate matter in the air of a place or PPM (parts per million) is 150 cubic meters in 24 hours.
However, analysis of CAMS’ report showed there have been over 250 cubic meters of particulate matter in Khulna’s air in the last few months. The number hit 400-450 cubic meters a few times during this period.Tthe problem of air pollution while visiting various parts of the city.
Most of the roads from the city’s Shonadanga area to Shahid Sheikh Abu Naser Hospital and Khalishpur area are in still in bad shape. Due to the ongoing construction work, air quality of the areas adjacent to these roads has become extremely unhealthy.
Meanwhile, the link roads from Joragate, Ahsan Ahmed road, Shamsur Rahman road, BIDC road, Khan Jahan Ali Shorok, Shipyard road, Mujgunni highway and Bus Terminal area of the city to Boyra, Notun Rasta, link roads close to the bus terminal have become dangerous due to excessive dust. Therefore, people are avoiding these areas and roads.