Chandrapur: Concerned Over Remeriorating Air Quality in the City, Waatavaran Foundation, Mumbai, Under Aegis Chandrapur Municipal Corporation (CMC) and local NGOs installed artificial lung billboards (also referred to as breathing billboards) in SAWARKAR SQUARE busy here on Wednesday.
Chandrapur thus became only the third city in Maharashtra, after Mumbai and Nagpur, to get a high efficiency particulate air filter to test the toxicity in the air.
ECO-PRO Logat NGO organization, the clean air action group along with the active CMC involvement under ‘Majhi Vasundhara Abhiyan’ and ‘National Clean Air Program’ allows to get artificial lung billboards.
“This initiative is intended to show how much air is polluted by Chandrapur citizens breathe and what their influence on health.
This billboard has been designed to replicate the process of human breathing.
Real-time air quality monitors have been installed on the advertising board, which continuously measures air quality,” said Rahul Sawant’s environment, which is connected with the NGO Waatavaran Foundation.
He claimed the white lung on a billboard will gradually turn black so that it shows residents how bad and unclean air in the area.
The purpose of the advertising board is to show the visual effects of air pollution on people’s health and lungs, Sawant explained.
“Real-time air quality data collected until the black lungs will be analyzed by experts and detailed reports will be submitted to the authorities and government institutions for further action,” he said.
Kota Commissioner Rajesh Mohite officially inaugurated artificial lung billboards in the presence of senior environmental lovers in the morning.
The air quality monitor shows high particle material (PM) 2.5 score 216, as soon as it is turned on.
PM2.5 scores remain above 200 throughout the day which shows the dangerous quality of citizens breathe here.
Mohite said, “Billboard will help in creating awareness among people and will be proven to be an important step in collecting public participation to achieve clean air purposes.” He claimed the public would see the visual impact of air pollution in artificial breathing lungs and would help them for introspection what their contributions were in air pollution.
Corporator, Pappu Deshmukh, Eco-Pro President, Bandu Dhotre, President of Green Planet Society, Suresh Chopne, Senior Environment Dr.
Yogeshwar Dudhpachare, entrepreneur Sadanand Khatri also expressed their views on that occasion.
NGOs involved in the initiative decided to ensure maximum publicity and awareness through the media, social media and other ways to deteriorate air quality in the city during the campaign.