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ABSTRACT
Air pollution, presently a common concern for all the major cities of the world, is increasingly contributing severe impacts on human health including significant effect on ecosystems. The sources of air pollution are stationary (industrial operations), mobile (transportation) and area (windblown dust & miscellaneous burning). The West Bengal Pollution Control Board (WBPCB) has established the monitoring network for ambient air quality that measures the principal pollutants i.e. Suspended Particulate Matter (SPM), Respirable Particulate Matter (RPM), Sulphur Dioxide (SO2), Oxides of Nitrogen (NOx) and Lead (Pb). The city Kolkata basically experiences unhealthy air because of high SPM & RPM. While establishing the main concerns and sources, WBPCB as one of the strategies for air quality improvement had initiated its efforts to control SPM & RPM by implementing more stringent emission standards for stationary sources followed by cleaner technology programme. The air quality management strategy was taken based on scientific considerations. As a first step, coal fired boilers (up to 2 t / hr. steam generation capacity) were phased out within Kolkata Metropolitan Area (KMA) followed by installation of oil / gas fired boilers. The concept of the joint venture project of WBPCB and India Canada Environment Facility (ICEF) was to provide financial assistance to the industries for adopting the cleaner fuel technology (50% of the total cost involvement for technology transfer) and the stakeholders were taken into confidence during project formulation. The main target of the project was compliance of the new stricter emission standards and that has been established significantly under this project. Cost effectiveness of the air quality management has been done and benefits like increase in the efficiency of the combustion system, insignificant increase in the production cost, manufacturing of better quality products, better work-zone area & air quality and collectively improved air quality in Kolkata have been achieved.
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