Zabol, Iran: 217 micrograms per cubic metres
Patna Junction: 316 micrograms per cubic metres
The city can well be the most polluted city, not sixth as marked by the World Health Orgnaisation (WHO), in the world - if you go by recent data procured over 16 days in May.
Zabol in Iran ranked as the world's most polluted city in the 2016 urban air quality database of WHO, released in March.
The data on ambient air quality - released by the Centre for Environment and Energy Development (CEED) on Wednesday - were procured from five monitoring stations set up at Patna City, NIT Mor, Danapur bus stand, Phulwarisharif and Patna Junction between May 16 and 31.
The readings reveal that average daily presence of particulate matter (PM) 2.5 or PM2.5 in the city ranged between 316 micrograms and 63 micrograms per cubic metres of air over the 16-day period. On the other hand, average PM10 was in the range of 350 to 143 micrograms per cubic metres in the same period.
WHO had ranked Patna as the sixth most polluted among 3,000 cities across the world on the basis of average annual PM2.5 readings based on data from 2013. The state capital had notched an average level of 149 micrograms of PM2.5 per cubic metres of air in 2013.
PM2.5 and PM10 are particulate matter of less than 2.5 microns and 10 microns in diameter, respectively. They are considered among the main reasons behind respiratory diseases, cancers, disorders of heart, lung, throat and eyes.
Among these, PM2.5 is considered the deadliest, as it could penetrate lungs and also pervade the blood stream, causing DNA disorders, cancers, heart attacks and premature death.
The national permissible limit fixed by the Central Pollution Control Board for PM2.5 is 60 micrograms per cubic metres of air while it is 100 micrograms per cubic metre of air for PM10.
"It is shocking to see such high level of air pollution in the city. The presence of the two types of particulate matter exceeds the national permissible limit by several times. The state government needs to work on war footing to address this problem of air pollution," said CEED chief executive officer Ramapati Kumar while releasing a report on the study of data collected by the monitoring devices.
"Though average annual readings are taken to rank a city on the basis of air pollution, if the pollution levels detected by our monitoring stations continue over the year, then Patna's position could be anybody's guess. We do not want to scare people, but the situation here is alarming," Ramapati added.
He added that vehicular emission, open burning of biomass fuel, use of diesel in electricity generators, unchecked construction activity without adherence to guidelines and dust pollution were the major sources of air pollution in the city. He also asserted that the lack of awareness among the people about the hazards of air pollution was escalating the problem further.
The data reveal that on 70 per cent or 12 out of 16 days the air quality was poor to severe, while only four days were observed as moderate pollution days. On no day did the city have good air quality.
"The air quality was especially under poor to severe category during the mornings, afternoons and evenings. The quality was relatively better at midnight. Due to this, the people kept inhaling polluted air. After all, WHO has categorised ambient air pollution as the fifth-largest killer across the globe," said CEED programme manager Ankita Jyoti.
The NGO has recommended that the government should develop a clean air action plan to tackle air pollution in the city. It said air pollution should be monitored in real time and transparency should be maintained in sharing the data with the people. An efficient public transport system should be developed, dependence of fossil fuels and biomass fuels should be curtailed, and pollution from brick kilns should be reined in.
