Meghalaya chief minister Conrad K. Sangma on Thursday informed the state Assembly that he has written to his Assam counterpart for a joint action plan to combat pollution at Byrnihat while contesting the report of the IQAir, a Swiss company that ranked the town as the world’s “most polluted city”.

The World Air Quality Report for 2024 published by IQAir on Tuesday said Byrnihat, a border town in Assam, recorded an annual average PM2.5 concentration of 128.2 microgram per cubic meter(μg/m3).

Sangma, in his suo motu statement in the Assembly on the pollution situation and what his government was doing to arrest pollution in Byrnihat, contested the report. He said the data generated from four manual ambient air quality monitoring stations of the Meghalaya State Pollution Control Board (MSPCB) located at Byrnihat town, recorded the annual average PM2.5 concentration for 2024 as 50.1 microgram per cubic meter (μg/m3). Moreover, the MSPCB’s overall Air Quality Index between January till the first week of March was “satisfactory”.

The NPP-led government by Sangma was facing heat over the “disturbing” pollution report with coalition partner BJP attributing the “inglorious distinction” bestowed on Byrnihat as the world’s “most polluted place” to “weak enforcement” of existing regulations and “lack of policies that need strong political will to implement”.

Mariahom Kharkrang, Meghalaya BJP’s chief spokesperson, said in a statement on Wednesday that the state BJP “is deeply concerned” for Byrnihat.

“... Haphazard development, ineffective policies, ungoverned economic activities and short-sighted plans have brought this grave disrepute to our wonderful state,”
he said.

Sangma said that consequent to the closure of seven industrial units, the AQI still reflected as “poor” to “very poor”.

“This indicates that the major sources of air pollution may be attributed to industrial and other activities along the Assam side,” Sangma said, while committing to work together with Assam to resolve the pollution issue.