OBHIZATRIK Foundation has launched an initiative to expand air pollution monitoring across Dhaka, particularly in underserved communities, through a network of hyperlocal PM2.5 monitoring devices.
The foundation held an 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 on Tuesday.
The project is supported by the Air Quality Fund 2026 of the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC).
DoE Director General Md Lutfor Rahman attended the meeting as chief guest, while OBHIZATRIK Foundation president Ahmed Imtiaz Jami presented the project's objectives and implementation plan.
Ahmad Kamruzzaman Majumder, chairman of the Center for Atmospheric Pollution Studies and technical lead of the project, outlined its technical aspects.
Speaking at the meeting, 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.
Through the initiative, the foundation aims to monitor air quality, work with government and non-government stakeholders, contribute to policy development and raise public awareness through social and behavioural change programs, he said.
Majumder said air quality 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 collected data will be made publicly accessible, while research papers will also be published based on the findings, he added.
The project aims to establish a monitoring network covering different parts of Dhaka, with particular focus on 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; 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 organizations, along with faculty members from Stamford University Bangladesh and Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (Buet), 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.