Pollution turns artificial lungs installed in Lucknow black in 24 hours; experts point to ‘loopholes’ in govt’s clean air policy

Lucknow: Raising concerns over the levels of pollution in Uttar Pradesh, artificial lungs installed near Nagar Nigam office in Lalbagh area turned black within 24 hours. “This shows the air quality here. It took six days for the lungs to turn black in Delhi, 18 days in Bengaluru,” said Ekta Shekhar, Director, Climate Agenda. [caption id=“attachment_5890981” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Artificial lungs turned black in 24 hours in Lucknow. ANI[/caption] She added, “In Lucknow, the lungs turned black by the very next day of the installation, within 24 hours. We had used HEPA filters. There are loopholes in the National Clean Air Programme of the government. Till the time they are not addressed, the situation won’t be better in the state,” Shekhar added. Besides Uttar Pradesh, the overall air quality index (AQI) again deteriorated to ‘very poor’ category on Sunday in the national capital after the level of harmful pollutants shot up. According to Centre-run SAFAR, Delhi’s AQI was docking at 382 in the morning.