GUWAHATI: The Guwahati Municipal Corporation (GMC) failed to take any action on the formation of air action plan to improve the air quality index in the city.
The ministry of environment had released a draft of the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) in April this year. In the draft, Guwahati had featured among the ‘non-attainment cities’ along with Nagaon, Nalbari, Sivasagar and Silchar from Assam. A total of 94 cities had earlier been identified as non-attainment cities nationally.
The NCAP is a national programme to tackle the increasing the air pollution across the country. It suggests several measures to reduce air pollution levels in a collaborative approach.
Accordingly, Guwahati was mandated to make the air action plan to better its air quality. For this, the Guwahati Municipal Corporation (GMC) had collaborated with Clean Air Asia (CAA) - an international non-profit organisation in order to bring down the levels of air pollution in the city. The NGO works in the field of bettering the air quality in Asian cities and began its operations in India two years ago.
CAA had also prepared a detailed action plan for the same and suggested a slew of measures to improve the air quality of Guwahati.
However, CAA officials have informed that GMC has not shown any interest in the air action plan after the initial interactions.
“We did not receive any response from them after that and we don’t want to independently work without involving the government authorities,” CAA’s India director Prarthana Borah told G Plus.