LAHORE: The Environment Protection Department (EPD) has declared several private monitors being used around the city ‘inaccurate’ and ‘misleading’.

Spokesperson for the EPD Sajid Bashir told Dawn that many of the monitors being used have been causing confusion to the public because they have not been calibrated properly, and are extra sensitive, measuring almost anything in the air.

“Some of them are imported devices, some are locally manufactured,” he said.

“But it is very important to know where the air quality monitors are placed, what is the wind direction in that area, what is the height, etc. If the monitor is in a congested place it will give a different measurement. If it’s in a place where there are hardly any cars then it will be different.”

About EPD’s own data, Bashir said that the department gives an aggregate based on a 24 hours data evaluation.

“We combine data and bring out aggregate data,” he said. “Every hour data is taken from our fixed monitors from Met Office, Town Hall, Township and we also have a mobile station.”

However experts have time and again commented on the lack of transparency the EPD’s data has including the fact that the data is uploaded after 24 hours.

Regarding the air pointers that the department had ordered in 2017, he said that they were not working according to Pakistani standards. “They did not work properly. Results were not accurate,” he said.

He said previous equipment was bought in 2008 which were still being used.

Earlier the EPD had also said that smog worsened when the wind direction changed and it came from the east carrying smog from India.

DATA DISCREPANCIES

The EPD website, however, does not show hourly data and live updates. The air quality index is also more flexible compared to the one used world over. For instance, an updated reading by the World Air Qualiy Index (WAQI) was recorded as 179 on Saturday 17:00 by the air monitor installed at the US Consulate in Lahore. It was declared ‘Unhealthy’ by WAQI. However, the same figure under the Punjab EPD’s standards would be declared as ‘Satisfactory’.

However, EPD Deputy Director Naseemur Rehman Shah said that Pakistan had its own standards of measurements with ‘multiple factors’ being taken into account. “This has been highlighted in the 2017 Smog Policy’. We cannot measure our air quality according to what other countries have,” he said.

Meanwhile, some people have reported text messages being forwarded where private air monitors have been declared as ‘against national interest’.

“To support foreign agenda, they have installed low cost devices which are producing fake data on the AQI and particulate matter,” reads the text message, incidentally disseminated by an EPD official.

“These devices reads moisture, humidity as particulate matter and pollution … Air visual operators are enemy of Pakistan who has only one agenda to defame Pakistan as polluted country to destroy it’s economy and tourism. Strict actions are required against these culprits, enemy of Pakistan.”

Published in Dawn, November 8th, 2020