Costs of air pollution
Monday, 10 August 2009
A recent press report -- based on a seminar -- informs us that in Dhaka city alone, air pollution, on an average annual basis, leads to some 74,000 cases of bronchitis, about 7.0 million cases of restricted activity days, 14,000 cases of respiratory diseases-related hospital interment, over 286,000 emergency room visits, about 2.8 million cases of asthma attacks and over 20 million respiratory illness-related symptoms.
The costs of treatment and work losses from sicknesses due to air pollution from air pollution have been estimated conservatively at Taka 134 billion a year. For a brief period, after the withdrawal of the very polluting three-wheeler auto rickshaws from the city, the air quality improved somehow. But there has been only regression noted over the last couple of years. Dhaka is back to its unwanted status as the most air polluted city in the world.
The figures mentioned above point to the urgent necessity need for further introducing and enforcing existing rules and regulations in a tough manner against air pollution as it has become a matter of deep concern from the standpoint of public health. Government may fall back on the argument that it does not directly have to allocate additional resources to treat pollution-related health problems. But, on the economic side, such arguments are irrational because resources are scarce and the concept of proper use of resources dictates economy in the spending of the same. The ones who spend money privately to treat pollution-related sicknesses are great in number but they could certainly spend the same on useful and productive purposes in a better way if they would have no requirement to spend it on such medical care. The same reasoning applies to governmental spending in the area.
Laws against the polluters should be enforced strictly and extensively on a regular basis. There is an urgent need to decommission aged buses and trucks. The polluting vehicles will have to be detected and detained through sterner traffic policing and then fined or seized as per the requirement. The owners of vehicles should be warned to stop excess fuming if they want to spare the same from fines and seizure.
Rukhsana Haque
New Eskaton, Dhaka.
The costs of treatment and work losses from sicknesses due to air pollution from air pollution have been estimated conservatively at Taka 134 billion a year. For a brief period, after the withdrawal of the very polluting three-wheeler auto rickshaws from the city, the air quality improved somehow. But there has been only regression noted over the last couple of years. Dhaka is back to its unwanted status as the most air polluted city in the world.
The figures mentioned above point to the urgent necessity need for further introducing and enforcing existing rules and regulations in a tough manner against air pollution as it has become a matter of deep concern from the standpoint of public health. Government may fall back on the argument that it does not directly have to allocate additional resources to treat pollution-related health problems. But, on the economic side, such arguments are irrational because resources are scarce and the concept of proper use of resources dictates economy in the spending of the same. The ones who spend money privately to treat pollution-related sicknesses are great in number but they could certainly spend the same on useful and productive purposes in a better way if they would have no requirement to spend it on such medical care. The same reasoning applies to governmental spending in the area.
Laws against the polluters should be enforced strictly and extensively on a regular basis. There is an urgent need to decommission aged buses and trucks. The polluting vehicles will have to be detected and detained through sterner traffic policing and then fined or seized as per the requirement. The owners of vehicles should be warned to stop excess fuming if they want to spare the same from fines and seizure.
Rukhsana Haque
New Eskaton, Dhaka.