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Project for clean air begins

Better air to save up to $500m health bill a year

Staff Correspondent
A five-year long 71.2 million US dollars clean air project formally begins today to improve air quality in the capital and five other divisional cities.
State Minister for Environment and Forest Hasan Mahmud will inaugurate the clean air and sustainable environment (CASE) project at a city hotel.
The aim of the project is to improve air quality and safe mobility through better management of transport and application of clean technology in brick making industries.
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If people's exposure to polluted air in Dhaka could be reduced by 20-80 percent, it would save health costs of 170-500 US dollars every year, Dr Mohammad Nasiruddin. project director of the CASE, said at a session on the project at a city hotel yesterday.
The environment and forest ministry and the World Bank, Dhaka office, jointly organised the session.
The project also will improve the capacity of the department of environment (DoE) to monitor air quality and undertake 25 brick kiln projects with cleaner technologies to reduce air pollution as well as carry out awareness campaign toward the issue through mass media, said Maria Sarraf, CASE project task team leader of the World Bank.
Of the project cost, the World Bank is providing 62.2 million US dollars as loan while Bangladesh government the rest.
Three agencies--the department of environment, Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) and Dhaka Transport Coordination Board (DTCB) will implement the project. The DoE will look after its environment matters while DCCand DTCB the transport.
The CASE project is intended to build 70 km new sidewalks, 80 km one-way streets and introduce bus rapid transit (BRT) among
other components. The project period will end on December31,2014.
“During the winter season, air pollution level in the Dhaka city goes alarmingly high with concentration of up to 270 microgram of fine particulate matters in per cubic metre of air," Nasiruddin said while talking to The Daily Star.
“The permissible level of particulate matters in Bangladesh is 65 microgram while it is 10 microgram as per the standard of the World Health Organisation," he said adding, "Age-old unfit vehicles and brick kilns are primarily responsible for air pollution."
The department of environment's air quality monitoring project ended in December, 2007. It has instituted a 20-staff air quality cell.
The existing air pollution monitoring equipment included five continuous air monitoring stations-two in Dhaka and one in Chittagong, Rajshahi and Khulna each.
DoE Director (Technical) Md Shahjahan, who chaired the session, said though phasing out of two-stroke autorickshaws have improved gaseous pollution in the city's air, the improvement has not sustained due to pollution with particulate matters by diesel-run vehicles.
World Bank environment specialists Shakil Ahmed Ferdousi and Nadia Sharmin, among others, spoke at the session.