LAHORE: Because of the smog, Lahore is once again at the top of the world’s pollution list. To try to fix the problem, the Punjab government is thinking about a plan to use fake rain in the provincial capital later this month.
Cloud seeding, which is another name for artificial rain, is a way to change the weather in order to make it rain. In order to do this, different chemicals are added to clouds that help raindrops form even more.
Lahore’s air quality index (AQI) was a “hazardous” 470 on Thursday, but it was only 335 on Friday, according to IQAir.
Bilal Iqbal, who is acting as the Environment Minister of Punjab, led a meeting on Friday to find a new way to deal with the ongoing smog problem. A statement from the provincial environment office says that a meeting was held to talk about whether or not artificial rain would work.
Preparations should be made for the fake rain that will happen on November 28 or 29. The acting minister told people to get together and make a working group to oversee the project. He also said that the working group’s job was to look at the steps that could make it easier for planes to be used for fake rain.
Iqbal also said that clouds were necessary for the fake rain to work. Mansoor Qadir, who was there as the caretaker provincial education minister, said that the working group should look at all parts of the project and then send their final suggestions to the interim chief minister for approval.
Aside from that, Iqbal met with Zhao Shiren, the Chinese consul general, and they talked about the smog problem.
The acting provincial minister brought up the idea of getting Chinese environmental experts to help clean up the smog in Lahore.
He said that 30% of the current smog in Lahore was caused by winds from India and 70% was caused by traffic, factories, and dust in the area. Iqbal said that making it rain was the only thing that could be done in the short run. He also said, “The smog will be gone by next month, but we want to find a long-term solution to this problem to make things easier for the new government.”
The Chinese consul general advised that a tower be built in Lahore to clean the air. The schools in Lahore will be closed on Saturday (today), and the city’s shopping malls will open after 3pm. The roads in the city are being sprayed with water before they are cleaned.
Action is being taken against industries that pollute, people who burn crop residue, and cars that make smoke. A similar event happened when the Lahore High Court heard requests to clean up the smog in the city. As part of the interim plan, the lawyer for the provincial government told the court that gyms and restaurants should close early and that other steps should also be taken.
Because of the COVID-19 spread, Justice Shahid Karim said that some of these suggestions didn’t make sense since gyms were closed. The lawyer responded that the suggestions were being looked over. The judge said that the factories’ role in smog was linked to that of the people who worked in the relevant area.
He also said that the Punjab Employees Efficiency, Discipline and Accountability (PEEDA) Act should be used to punish these officers. The court put off hearing the cases until November 22 and told the lawyer to promote cycling in Lahore.
