LAHORE – With an Air Quality Index (AQI) of 185 (unhealthy), Lahore (Pakistan) ranked second on the list of the 10 most polluted cities in the world.
Per the data collected from the IQ Air website on Sunday afternoon, Delhi (India) was the most polluted city on the globe with an AQI of 187, closely followed by Lahore with an AQI of 185.
Karachi (Pakistan) is placed at number nine on the list with an AQI 107 (unhealthy for sensitive groups).
Kuwait City is ranked at third place with an AQI of 154 followed by Dhaka (Bangladesh) with an AQI of 153. Kolkata (India) was in fifth place with AQI of 151.
The rest of the top ten cities included Dubai (AQI140), Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo (AQI 134), Kathmandu, Nepal (AQI 120), and Manama, Bahrain (AQI 99).
Per the environmentalists, the use of substandard fuels such as plastic and rubber especially in the cottage industry around Bund Road is contributing significantly to increasing the pollution. They claimed that the government was not taking effective measures to tackle this issue.
Vehicular emissions, stubble burning and smog coming from India were the main reasons, which should be taken care of effectively.
Similarly, LDA and other institutions were doing patchwork of roads in Lahore due to which movement of heavy machinery was a routine.
Most of the heavy vehicles owned by public departments such as LWMC, Wasa, LDA, MCL, C&W etc lacked fitness certificates and were never checked by the relevant authorities.
EPA claimed taking all measures to tackle Smog. A ban has been imposed on the movement of uncovered sand/mud trollies across the province, the EPA officials claimed.
