No established mechanism to rank cities on pollution: Government to Lok Sabha
The Hindu
Union Minister of State for Environment Ashwini Kumar Choubey said this in the Lok Sabha in response to a question by Congress MP Jyotsna Charandas Mahant.
The government on August 8 said there is no established mechanism for ranking cities in terms of pollution and that the satellite data used for the purpose by private institutions and universities is not validated by proper ground truthing.
Union Minister of State for Environment Ashwini Kumar Choubey said this in the Lok Sabha in response to a question by Congress MP Jyotsna Charandas Mahant.
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“There is no established mechanism for ranking cities in terms of pollution. It also requires authentic data and proper peer review.”
"The government is aware that several private institutions and universities are ranking cities adopting different methodologies, different datasets and using different weightages to parametres. The data used for ranking is extracted primarily from satellite imagery, which is not validated by proper ground truthing," the Minister said.
On July 18, the government had told the Lok Sabha that there is no linear relationship between air pollution and life expectancy as assumed in the Air Quality Life Index (AQLI) published by The Energy Policy Institute, University of Chicago (EPIC).
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