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HYDERABAD, June 27

THE Andhra Pradesh Government is making serious efforts in concert with NGOs, Forum for Better Hyderabad, associations of transporters and others to reduce air pollution levels in the twin cities which have reached alarming proportions and are posing serious health hazards.

As part of this drive, Mr Ayyanna Patrudu, Minister for Environment, Science and Technology, highlighted the problems and the solutions to tackle them at a meeting on "Health impacts of vehicular pollution in the twin cities'' organised under the auspices of the Andhra Pradesh Pollution Control Board.

He said there were about 12-lakh registered vehicles in the twin cities and 1.24 lakh vehicles were being added every year. Two and three-wheelers were identified as the major cause of air pollution.

Among the steps envisaged was eliciting the views of the public at monthly workshops on improving the environment and implementing them to the extent possible. It was stated that in 1995, the level of air pollution was less than 500 tonnes a day which was within the limits set by the World Health Organisation, but now it had reached 1,150 tonnes and was going up.

In order to conduct pollution checks, all 185 petrol retail outlets would be equipped with modern machinery in a couple of months, he said. A task force had been formed to assess pollution levels every month and submit reports to the Cabinet sub-committee formed for the purpose.

A move to deny supply of petrol to vehicles not conforming to rules and to hike remuneration to petrol bunk owners for conducting pollution checks was under consideration.

The State Road Transport Corporation was asked to adopt Euro I norms until the alternative fuel, CNG, was available.

Supply of low sulphur diesel from the Centre had been sought and LPG as an alternative fuel to be used on vehicles was expected to be available through a pipeline from Visakhapatnam to Hyderabad from next year.

Five mobile vehicles would be pressed into service to check polluting vehicles and levying fines if found violating pollution norms.

Mr B.V. Mohan Reddy, Minister for Transport, said 120 LPG centres would be opened in the State in the next three years at the rate of 45 a year.

Mr T. Chatterjee, Principal Secretary of Municipal Administration and Urban Development, in his presentation stated that with the increase in vehicular population, the number of patients suffering from pulmonary diseases had gone up. In the twin cities 1.2 lakh citizens were affected by lung problems.

Mr T. Krishna Reddy, Mayor, said that with more than 10-fold increase in population in the twin cities in the last five decades, new solutions were necessary as in Singapore and Malaysia to check the problem of vehicular pollution.

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