Air pollution has emerged as a biggest environmental health risk for the country, particularly for Kathmandu where the rapid urbanisation and population growth makes the situation even worse. Over the years, the government has made no significant effort to improve the air quality and mitigate the risks except for introducing policies and programmes but lacking implementation. We are still struggling to have a research on identifying the sources of harmful air pollutants, and level of exposures to human life'', said Dhiraj Pokharel of the Society for Legal and Environmental Analysis and Development Research (Leaders Nepal), an NGO working on indoor air pollution.

The EPI report says that 75 percent of the total populations in Nepal and India are exposed to unsafe levels of fine particulate matters as air pollution is a growing global problem. It situation is worse in rapidly developing economies like China and India than in wealthy and very poor countries. The report mentioned that many Asian and African countries have not fared well in addressing environmental problems, including air quality as all have broad governance problems with long, troubled legacies. ?Only well-functioning governments are able to manage the environment for the benefit of all,? the report added.