THE High Court yet again on October 30 asked the authorities concerned to enforce a nine-point directive it had given earlier to contain air pollution in Dhaka. The court in February 2020 gave the directive asking the government to shut down brick kilns in and around the capital in two months and ban black smoke-emitting vehicles serving out their shelf life, destroy such vehicles and define their valid life spans. Five of the directives were meant for city authorities on the waste management system, environmentally sound construction work and the sprinkling of water on city roads. The air quality of Dhaka has worryingly ranged between 鈥榰nhealthy鈥� and 鈥榟azardous鈥� for some years. More than five lakh registered vehicles are now on the road without fitness clearance, mainly because of poor Road Transport Authority oversight. The environment department records show many illegal brick kilns still run and pollute the environment in Dhaka and the four surrounding districts. The reality suggests that the government has remained mostly non-compliant in implementing the directives and generally negligent in enforcing relevant laws. It is disparaging that five years later, the High Court directives remain unimplemented and people continue to bear the brunt of air pollution. 聽
Meanwhile on October 30, Dhaka was listed the sixth most polluted city in the world, with an Air Quality Index score of 157, indicating unhealthy air conditions. In 2024, unhealthy air was recorded for 216 days in Dhaka, which was 92 days in 2016. In Dhaka city, the most harmful fine particulate matter levels are on an average 150 per cent above the WHO air quality guidelines. The global annual report of the Air Quality Life Index, published by the University of Chicago鈥檚 Energy Policy Institute in August, warns that the health toll caused by particulate matter pollution far exceeds that caused by tobacco use, malnutrition or unsafe water and cuts average life expectancy in Bangladesh by 5.5 years, making it the country鈥檚 deadliest external health risk. In 2019, as the World Bank says, air pollution was the second largest risk factor causing death and disability in Bangladesh and economic losses from air pollution were estimated to be between 3.9 and 4.4 per cent of the country鈥檚 gross domestic product. Yet, the government鈥檚 action in containing air pollution remains rhetorical.
The government should, therefore, abandon its negligent attitude towards air pollution and comply with the High Court order by designing and implementing a time-bound mitigation plan that would effectively shut down environmentally hazardous brick kilns, ban black smoke-emitting vehicles and reduce dust from construction work. The health and the environment ministry should develop a system to record the burden of diseases caused by air pollution for a systematic oversight on public health effects.
