KATHMANDU: Many of Air quality monitoring equipment installed in different places have gone dysfunctional across the country.
Out of 12 installed machines, four remain non-functional. Three air-quality monitoring machines of Pokhara and one of Kirtipur in Kathmandu are entirely defunct. Similarly, the equipment installed at Gandaki Boarding School, Department of Hydrology and Meteorology and Pokhara University are also not functioning well, said Durga Prasad Duwadi, Director General of the Department of Environment (DoE).
According to Duwadi, the damaged machines have been removed from the installed centers in Pokhara for calculation. “They are examined in each or one and a half years,” he said. “The machines should provide official data. So, they are taken to the department for thorough examination.”
However, Safala Shrestha, spokesperson for the DoE, claimed that the machines were brought to Kathmandu for testing their standard. “Three machines of Pokhara are not exactly damaged. We call it calibration,” she said. “We will reinstall them after testing their standard.”
In October 2017, four batteries of equipment installed near Department of Physics under Tribhuvan University were stolen. Each of the stolen batteries costs Rs. 15,000 to 20,000. However, the DoE has failed to manage batteries for the center even in a period of nine months.
