Air-O-Thon, the Chennai Edition of the 2nd Series of the conference to address on “Indoor Air Quality Management in Tropical Climatic Conditions: Challenges and Way Forward” was organized by Prospurs Pte. Ltd., Indian Pollution Control Association (IPCA), New Delhi, IIT Madras, and Society for Indoor Environment at Hall No. 2, ICSR, IIT Madras Campus on 16th February 2018, which was inaugurated by Dr. N. Krishna Kumar, IFS (Retd.), Chairman, State Environment Impact Assessment Authority Tamil Nadu, Prof. K. Ramamurthy, Head, Civil Engineering Dept. IITM, and Dr. Shiva Nagendra, Professor, Civil Engg., IITM, Mr. Ashish Jain, Director, IPCA, and Dr. Radha Goyal, Deputy Director, IPCA.
In the inaugural session, Dr. Kumar said that air pollution is very important issue, which need to be addressed very frequently to bring the awareness and solution to the existing solution. As he spent his entire life in forest and he showed his concern to forest life too. He mentioned that animal, birds are also suffering from the pollutants and emphasised that the efforts should be put to improve indoor air quality besides the outdoor air quality. He appealed with the august gathering to come together and bring more stakeholder to this cause and disseminate the knowledge, experience and learning to the masses.
The one day event was focused on Indoor Air quality Issues with different urban and rural settings in India since it is one of the serious threats to the population across the world. The health issues associated with IAQ exposure will also be discussed along with indoor air quality management plans of Central Pollution Control Board and State Pollution Control Boards of Tamilnadu and Karnataka states. The possible outcome of the event will be in form of setting up draft IAQ guidelines for different urban and rural settings in India and the strategic approach (stakeholder driven participative and consultative approach ) to manage the IAQ issues in India.
Eminent speakers from CSIR- NEERI, IPCA, SIE and IITM, Tamilnadu and Karnataka SPCBs, Madras Medical College, Asian Paints, and Honeywell shared their knowledge and experience to the august gathering. They spoke and discussed the strategic matter such as design and development of air pollution control systems, indoor air quality issues in different indoor micro-environment, indoor air quality monitoring and its management at different urban and rural settings, effects of indoor air pollutants on health and solutions to improve IAQ and health. The event was participated by delegates from different industries, chamber of commerce and research students from reputed institutes in India.
The event was supported by many national organizations including IIT Bombay, EMC Mumbai, CSIR-NEERI, IIT Madras, IIT Delhi, MNIT Jaipur, University College of Medical Science, Delhi University, Citizen Environment Improvement Society, who will share their knowledge, experience, concerns, technologies and solutions and set up a momentum to fight with the issue of air pollutions.
The organizers of Air-O-Thon will prepare a recommendation document as the outcome of the 2nd series of summit completed after Chennai Edition and will present it to concern Ministries and Departments.
