ISLAMABAD: Heavy pollution-fueled smog forced authorities to announce new schedules for schools and markets this week in Pakistan’s most populous province, including the eastern city of Lahore which has risen to one of the world’s worst cities for hazardous air quality.
Lahore was the most polluted city in the world on Thursday evening, with a “hazardous” air quality index of 460, while its PM2.5 concentration, which measures air quality levels based on the concentration of lung-damaging airborne particles, was 88 times the WHO annual air quality guideline value. An annual global survey by the Swiss maker of air purifiers, IQAir, had put Lahore as the city with the worst air in the world in 2022.
The chief minister of Punjab, of which Lahore is the capital, said a short and long term “comprehensive plan” had been devised to deal with the challenges of smog. The government’s plan would be implemented across six provincial divisions including Lahore, Gujranwala, Faisalabad, Multan, Sahiwal, Sargodha, he said.
“Sunday market closures. Saturday openings post 3pm for markets, restaurants and offices. School closures Fri-Sun for safety,” Mohsin Naqvi wrote on X, listing the new measures.
He said water sprinkling in smog-affected areas would be doubled and Lahore’s iconic Mall Road, a major thoroughfare in the city, would be reserved for cyclists.
Among long term measures he listed subsidies on electric bikes for 10,000 students, leases on electric bikes for government employees, and the installation of ionization towers, which remove small particles from the air and improve indoor air quality. Naqvi also said the government was also considering measures to induce artificial rain.
Growing industrialization in South Asia in recent decades has fueled growing pollutants emanating from factories, construction activity and vehicles in densely populated areas.
The problem becomes more severe in cooler autumn and winter months, as temperature inversion prevents a layer of warm air from rising and traps pollutants closer to the ground.
Rising air pollution can cut life expectancy by more than five years per person in South Asia, one of the world’s most polluted regions.