Chief Secretary Atal Dulloo on Monday took stock of measures to improve the air quality in the cities of Jammu and Kashmir.

Dulloo took stock of all measures taken to improve the overall quality of air in the twin cities of Jammu and Srinagar in the UT Apex Committee meeting of National Clean Air Programme (NCAP).

The meeting was attended by the Additional Chief Secretary, Forest Department; Divisional Commissioner Kashmir and Jammu; PCCF; Secretary Transport; Commissioners of Jammu and Srinagar Municipal Corporations, besides other concerned officers.

The Chief Secretary impressed upon the concerned city administrations to take all the measures to improve the air quality in the cities as envisaged under the national programme.

He asked them to show more commitment toward this significant matter and ensure that the targets set for the two cities are met without fail.

Dulloo further took note of the expenditure made till date under this national programme and the works carried out to make the quality of air better.

He stressed on making strenuous efforts to complete all the ongoing works within this financial year. He also directed for accelerating the pace of tendering and other preliminary processes to execute other projects taken up under this programme.

The Chief Secretary maintained that clean air is one of the basic parameters of determining quality lifestyle in urban areas. He observed that measures like enhancing green spaces, reduction of pollutants by resorting to eco-friendly ways are going to have a great impact on our health and prosperity.

He called for coordinated efforts to implement this programme in letter and spirit.

It was given out by the ACS, Forests, Dheeraj Gupta that the National Clean Air Programme is a comprehensive time bound action programme launched in January 2019 with an objective to improve air quality, especially for non-attainment cities.

He said that a baseline has been given for each identified city and target set to be achieved for the concerned city administration to improve the air quality there.

The meeting was also apprised that funds to the tune of Rs94.60 crore have been received by the municipal bodies of twin cities for making meaningful intervention in this regard. It was said that 19 Manual Air Quality Monitoring Stations have been set up in Jammu and Srinagar for providing the real time updates.

Moreover, the data for the air quality of 19 different parameters monitored by the CAAQMS installed at Rajbagh Srinagar is displayed on the screen for information of the general public.

Similarly, air quality of 10 locations of Jammu city is being monitored and displayed through towers installed under Jammu Smart City Project at main chowks of Jammu city for information of general public.