The Ministry of Population and Environment (MoPE) is planning to come up with a long-term strategy to address the growing challenges of various kinds of pollution in the country. 

The Department of Environment (DoEnv) is working on the document titled ‘National Pollution Control Strategy and Action Plan for Nepal’ with technical and financial support from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and Asian Development Bank (ADB). 

Expected to be a 15-year-strategy, the document will look into all kinds of pollution, including air, water, soil, solid and hazardous wastes and identify measures to mitigate effects on human lives and local environment, said Shankar Prasad Paudel, a senior divisional chemist with the DoEnv.  According to Paudel, a series of consultations will be held in all regions to prepare the strategy and related working plans. The development of strategy is expected to be completed within five months. 

The DoE has installed a new monitoring station at Ratnapark and started measuring the concentration of harmful particulate matters, including PM2.5 and PM10 in the air, from the second week of August, almost a decade after the previously installed devices at all six places went kaput. 

The government plans to install over 50 similar stations across the country in the coming months to monitor the air pollutants.