The Hon. (Dr.) Dammika Patabendi - Minister of Environment
The Minister stated that the Central Environmental Authority monitors ambient air quality and that Kandy is currently within national standards, with real-time data available through a new national air quality web portal launched on World Blue Sky Day. He noted that short-term air quality reductions between October and March can occur due to transboundary fine particulates and meteorological conditions, but said these are episodic rather than persistent local pollution sources. He outlined measures under the National Environmental Act, including vehicle and fuel emission standards, industrial emission controls, open-burning regulations, continuous monitoring, public advisories, the National Environmental Action Plan 2022–2030, and efforts through SACEP to revive regional cooperation on transboundary pollution.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 Hon. Speaker, the answer is as follows:
¶ 02 (a) (i) The Central Environmental Authority (CEA) conducts ambient air quality monitoring. According to CEA data, Kandy’s air quality is within national standards. On 7 September, World Blue Sky Day, we launched a national web portal to access real-time city air quality: www.aq.cealk. It operates in all three languages and displays current air quality status; for Kandy at this moment it is “Good” (green), with concurrent meteorological data.
¶ 03 (ii) At times between October and March, transboundary fine particulates can cause short-duration (a few hours) dips in air quality due to meteorological conditions. These are episodic and not persistent local sources.
¶ 04 (iii) Actions under the National Environmental Act for air quality management include: - Regulatory framework: • National Environmental (Air Emission, Fuel and Vehicle Import) standards — Gazettes 1295/11 (2003), 1557/14 (2008), 1887/20 (2014), 2079/42 (2018), 2083/03 (2018). Vehicle emissions testing is implemented with DMT, Department of Import and Export Control, and Ceylon Petroleum Corporation. • National Environmental (Stationary Source Emission Control) Regulations — industrial air pollution regulated via EPL and EIA processes. • National Environmental (Prohibition of Open Burning) Regulations — enforced by Sri Lanka Police. - Continuous monitoring and public information: CEA and other agencies conduct ongoing monitoring, analysis and public advisories; management protocols identify and control local sources. - Under the National Environmental Action Plan 2022–2030, programmes across 10 thematic areas are implemented for air quality management, coordinated through an inter-agency committee led by the Ministry of Environment, involving 11 key institutions. - On transboundary pollution: Sri Lanka previously engaged under the Male Declaration; though inactive now, we are working via SACEP to renew regional cooperation and attention.
¶ 05 (b) Not applicable.
Provenance
- Source
- Hansard, Friday, 26 September 2025 ·No. 1760588641001872 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
- Page · column
- not yet extracted — page/column anchors are not in the current dataset; the source PDF is the citable location.
- Permalink
/lk/speeches/17731
Cite as: The Hon. (Dr.) Dammika Patabendi - Minister of Environment. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 26 September 2025. No. 1760588641001872. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/17731