India has long been blamed for air pollution when scientists here have maintained that developed countries are bigger culprits on this front.

A three-year project by Indian and Italian scientists, which will commence in April at the city-based Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), will help determine the amount of air pollutants that are being transported to India from different parts of the world and vice-versa. The major contributors to the deterioration of air quality are pollution from vehicles and the burning of fossil fuels.

Titled 'Regional atmospheric environment

and intercontinental transport of pollutants', the project has been selected in the framework of the Indo-Italian programme of scientific and technological co-operation for 2008-2010 by the Department of Science and Technology (DST). IITM is the only institute in Asia which has the mandate for tropical meteorology research.

"A large amount of pollutants get transported to India from various parts of the world, including Asian and European countries," Gufran Beig, project manager and scientist at IITM, told TOI. He said resources available with the IITM will be used for the study of the Asian continent, while resources of institutes in Italy will be used to study pollutant transportation from Europe.

Along with Beig, three more scientists from IITM are working on the project — Suvarna Fadnavis, Sarojkumar Sahu and Sompriti Roy. The Italian team is being headed by Giovanna Finzie, a professor at the University of Bresia.

The scientists feel that the study will help nations share the responsibility for air pollution. It will also help give a better direction towards reducing pollution in various parts of the world.

"A number of times, India is termed as a highly polluted country. However, in comparison with other leading countries, our levels of pollution are not high. The results of this project will give a concrete picture of what is the exact amount of pollution as well the transportation of pollutants," Fadnavis said.