“I am annoyed. I don’t want to live in this dusty place,” said four-year-old Aarohi Adhikari of Hetauda.
Aarohi complained this after she felt difficulty in breathing because of the dust when she was in Bouddh, Kathmandu, with her aunt to celebrate the New Year. There were many people like Aarohi outside Bouddha Stupa. Everyone was facing the discomfort because of the dust. But they got used to living in dusty environment.
Photos by Amish Regmi
A crowd of people had gathered outside Bouddha Stupa to mark the New Year. Every passing vehicle on the road was blowing clouds of dust. People waiting for the public transport and the pedestrian were covering their nose and mouth to avoid breathing in the dusty air. “It’s difficult for us to breath. Small children like Aarohi do not want to wear the mask,” said Aarohi’s sister. “All our clothes have been covered with dust as we stood for a few minutes waiting for the bus,” she added.
Aarohi only complained that there was only dust on the road from Bouddha to Baneshwor and that discomforted her. “Radha sister, see the dust is entering my mouth and nose,” Aarohi said. Hearing little Aarohi’s agony, an elderly man travelling on the same bus, said, “We have been breathing the dusty air for years. Let’s hope these little children won’t have to breath such polluted air from this New year.”
Nowadays domestic and foreign tourists visiting Kathmandu have been calling it ‘Dust-mandu’. Poorly managed road expansion drives, sewerage pipe improvement, and digging of roads for pipe laying work for the Melamchi Water Supply Project have increased pollution in Kathmandu. On top of that, unchecked vehicle emission, haphazard dumping of construction materials such as sand, and pebbles on the roadside have added to the pollution.
Chief of Environment Management Department at Kathmandu Metropolitan City Hari Bahadur Kunwar blamed the lack of coordination between the concerned organizations involved in development works such as digging road, laying water pipes and building pavement for the increase in dust.
“The same road is dug again and again for laying the water pipes, and sewage pipes even after the completion of road construction that have increased the dust,” said Kunwar. The department has been prodding the concerned bodies to complete the work of road construction, sewage pipes and drinking water pipes to finish the work at the earliest. An investigation report of Global Burden of Diseases Nepal 2016 showed that thousands of people are dying untimely deaths due to air pollution.
Around 35,000 people are losing lives in Nepal every year and the number of deaths have been increasing by 2000-3000 each year, Dr Maheshwor Rupakheti, Scientific Project leader of German-based Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS), told Hakahaki. Air-pollution is causing many diseases in people and the diseases are claiming around 35,000 lives in Nepal, and around 7 million lives in the world. Nepal ranks 268th position in the World Health Organization (WHO)’s pollution index.
By : Khema Basnet
