Air quality specialists say the Punjab government let cloudy October days pass without seeding; officials point instead to pollution-clearing technology critics say does not exist at city scale.
LAHORE: Lahore’s air quality index climbed to 419 on Thursday morning, the worst of any major city in the world, as environmental experts accused the Punjab government of letting several chances to wash the smog out with artificial rain slip by this month.
The reading, recorded by Swiss monitoring firm IQAir between 10am and 11am, put Lahore far ahead of Cairo at 274 and New Delhi at 220, Dawn reported. The Punjab government’s own dashboard showed Lahore at 324 in the morning and neighbouring Kasur even worse at 348, with Faisalabad at 290. Any reading above 300 falls in the “hazardous” band.
Conditions eased around midday, with IQAir putting Lahore at 183 by 1pm, but the respite followed a punishing run. On Wednesday the citywide index stood at 358, with Allama Iqbal Town recording 605, according to IQAir data cited by Daily Pakistan. Lahore has topped the global list on most days this month, after Iqbal Town hit 342 last week and schools halted outdoor activities on Tuesday.
Air that does not move
Visibility has dropped sharply across the city. The Meteorological Department recorded wind speed of just 5km per hour on Wednesday, with humidity at 74pc and a minimum temperature of 16C, the still, damp and cooling mix that traps particulate matter close to the ground on autumn mornings.
Without wind or rain, pollutants from vehicles, brick kilns, factories and crop-residue fires in the wider plains have nowhere to go.
The rain that never came
Air quality experts told INP that if the government had arranged sufficiently heavy rainfall across the city on overcast days in October, the smog could have been cleared from all of Lahore at least once. The experts were not named.
The criticism carries weight because Punjab has done it before. In November 2024, the provincial government, working with the Strategic Plans Division, Army Aviation and the state refiner PARCO, carried out its first cloud seeding operation using what it called locally developed technology, producing rain in Jhelum, Gujar Khan, Chakwal and Talagang, The Express Tribune reported. Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz said at the time that Punjab had “made history”.
Cloud seeding needs moisture-bearing clouds to work, and this month brought at least one such window: a westerly system brought rain to northern Pakistan last weekend and briefly eased Lahore’s smog, but no seeding was announced.
A technology no one can name
The experts said that each time they raised the matter with officials responsible for the environment, they were told the government would deploy technology capable of removing microscopic pollutants from the air without rain. They said they knew of no such technology anywhere in the world.
Officials did not name the system. The equipment Punjab has publicly deployed is a fleet of water-misting “anti-smog guns”, 15 of which were introduced in Lahore last year at more than Rs45 million each, and the province approved a further Rs3bn in February for 30 fog cannons mounted on electric trucks, according to Dawn and The Express Tribune.
Such machines spray fine mist to knock dust out of the air near where they operate. Abid Omar, founder of the Pakistan Air Quality Initiative, has called them a “criminal waste of resources”, noting that they do little against the finest PM2.5 particles that do most of the damage to health. The Environmental Protection Department says the guns are deployed according to AQI, particulate levels and wind, and supplement rather than replace action at the source.
Crackdown in numbers
The government’s main line of defence has been enforcement. In a month-long operation from Sept. 28 to Oct. 27, the EPD inspected 11,580 brick kilns, demolishing 197 and sealing 163, and inspected 6,650 industrial sites, sealing 191, with fines of about Rs69 million across the two categories, Dawn reported. Teams also seized 45,100kg of plastic headed for burning.
EPD Director General Abdullah Nayyar Sheikh described the approach as a “data-driven, zero-tolerance strategy to protect public health”. The province has also deployed thermal drones to track smog sources and AI-enabled Safe City cameras that flagged 1,327 violations in three days last month, while 67 quick-response units chase satellite-detected crop fires.
Even so, the index keeps rising, and the gap between enforcement statistics and the air residents breathe is the core of the experts’ complaint.
What doctors advise
Medical experts have urged residents to avoid unnecessary outdoor activity. Those who must go out should wear a filter mask such as an N95, and homes and offices should keep doors and windows shut.
Children, the elderly and people with asthma or heart and lung conditions are most at risk. Eye irritation, sore throats and breathlessness are common at current levels, and anyone with a persistent cough, chest tightness or shortness of breath should seek medical advice. Strenuous exercise outdoors should be avoided until the air improves.
Residents can report smoke-emitting vehicles, waste burning and other violations by calling 15.
– with additional input from INP.
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