OBHIZATRIK Foundation has launched a project to expand air pollution monitoring in Dhaka, with a particular focus on underserved communities that are highly exposed to pollution but have limited access to air quality data.
The foundation held the inception meeting of its project, titled “Breathing Dhaka: Open-Access Hyperlocal PM2.5 Monitoring in Underserved Communities”, at the Department of Environment (DoE) headquarters in Agargaon today (3 November), according to a press release.
The initiative is supported by the Air Quality Fund 2026 of the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC).
DoE Director General Dr Md Lutfor Rahman attended the meeting as the chief guest, while OBHIZATRIK Foundation President Ahmed Imtiaz Jami presented the project’s objectives and implementation plan.
Speaking at the event, Lutfor Rahman said the initiative would play an important role in monitoring Dhaka’s air quality and expressed hope that such efforts would help the capital move out of the list of the world’s most polluted cities.
Jami said the foundation works with underprivileged communities, which are among the most vulnerable to the harmful effects of air pollution.
He said the project aims to monitor air quality, engage government and non-government stakeholders, contribute to policymaking and raise public awareness through social and behavioural change programmes.
Dr Ahmad Kamruzzaman Majumder, chairman of the Center for Atmospheric Pollution Studies and technical lead of the project, said PM2.5 monitoring devices would be installed in eight low-income, industrial-adjacent and pollution-vulnerable areas across Dhaka.
The devices will collect data continuously for 12 months, with the findings regularly cross-validated against data from the Department of Environment, he said.
The data will be made publicly accessible, and research papers will also be published based on the findings, he added.
The project seeks to establish a network of hyperlocal monitoring stations across different parts of the capital, particularly in communities that have long remained underserved in air quality monitoring.
The inception meeting discussed the implementation strategy, installation of PM2.5 sensors and selection of potential monitoring locations. Participants also shared recommendations on the project’s implementation and future activities.
Among those attending were Farid Ahmed, director of the DoE’s Dhaka Metropolitan Office; Dr Mohammad Abdul Motalib and Begum Shahnaj Rahman, deputy directors of its Air Quality Management Division; Tanjina Akter, assistant director of the division; Tapan Kumar Nath, deputy secretary; Ruhul Amin, assistant project director of BRCP-1 and assistant engineer of the Bangladesh Land Port Authority; and Dr Mohammad Safiur Rahman, chief scientific officer and head of division at the Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission.
Officials from government and non-government development organisations, as well as faculty members from Stamford University Bangladesh and Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, also attended the meeting.
The initiative is expected to generate community-level air quality data to support environmental research, pollution monitoring and evidence-based policymaking.
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