- Twenty-two of the world’s 30 cities with the worst levels of air pollution are in India; six Indian cities are in the top ten. (IQAir AirVisual’s 2019 World Air Quality Report)
- At least 140 million people in India breathe air that is 10 times or more over the WHO safe limit of 60 for PM 2.5.(based on 2016 data)
- All of India’s 1.4 billion people (100% of the country’s population) are exposed to unhealthy levels of ambient PM 2.5 – the most harmful pollutant.
- 1.7 million deaths in India were attributable to air pollution in 2019, which was 18% of the total deaths in the country according to India State-Level Disease Burden Initiative, a scientific paper on the health and economic impact of air pollution published last December in Lancet Planetary Health.
- Deaths Tied to Air Pollution Tripled in The Past 20 Years in India.
- Air pollution is India’s second-largest public health risk after malnutrition
- Air pollution may reduce life expectancy of Indians by nine years.
2.) Lack of proper mitigation strategy and unified approach. Interference by different agencies such as Supreme Court of India, National Green Tribunal (NGT), Ministries.
- India's Air Pollution Mitigation Strategy lacks proper Direction. Mostly metro cities have certain well-defined mitigation measures however there’s lack of such measures in many other states.
- There’s a lack of unified approach by State Government & Central Government and respective concerned authorities which leads to delay in implementation of various mitigation measures and subsequent loss to exchequer.
- Many times, the courts have had to intervene for the authorities to take action on air pollution which are done in a haste or for the sake of compliance.
3.) Failure of existing Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP): Non-availability of varied real time data from limited number of air pollution monitoring stations.
- In 2016, the Supreme Court approved the implementation of a Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) for Delhi and NCR. Pursuant to this, the government notified the GRAP to be implemented through the Environment Pollution (Prevention & Control) Authority (EPCA). GRAP is basically a plan to be implemented when the air quality deteriorates.
- Under the National Air Quality Monitoring Programme (NAMP),There are 573 operating stations in only 240 cities/towns (out of 4000 cities in India) in 26 states (out of 28 states in India) and 5 Union Territories (out of 8 Union Territories in India) of the country.
- Let’s take case of Bihar. The state capital Patna and Muzaffarpur figured among the four most polluted cities in the country and among the 32 most polluted cities globally, according to the the ‘World Air Quality Report, 2020’.
- Now according to National Air Quality Monitoring Programme (NAMP), there are only 2 Air quality monitoring stations in Bihar that too only in Patna.
- This is the where the problem lies. Limited number of Air Quality Monitoring Stations in such Highly polluted cities generate less and very inaccurate AQI data due to which proper planning/ strategy/solution to combat air pollution is not implemented.
Dr. AQI app provides Real-Time AQI monitoring and mitigation strategy for implementation as per severity of AQI level.
- Real-Time AQI Data will be pooled from Government Pollution Monitoring Stations, various pollution check up centres and portable AQI monitors on Ola/Uber Taxis. It will be populated on the server master console.
- The severity of AQI will get highlighted area-wise.
- The historical data in conjugation with real-time data shall be processed using AI/ML and priority zoning will be done for an area covering 500 m radius. Proper mitigation measures will be suggested for implementation according to the AQI category of the zone.
- The effectiveness of the measures shall be captured in the system in quantitative way and shall be further displayed on the App’s dashboard.
- Dr.AQI brings you the most accurate data from the largest data-set of Government Pollution Monitoring Stations, various pollution check up centres and portable AQI monitors on Ola/Uber Taxis.
- Smart Real-time notifications and updates keeps you protected and prepared.
- Graphs and data visualisation (Area-wise and Time-wise ) on dashboard makes it easier to understand and plan.
Frontend: Flutter Backend: Currently using Firebase which is a Serverless Backend but in future will use Nodejs, MongoDB, PostgreSQL and AWS Cloud services.