Air quality inspectors investigate air quality in China

New Delhi: Dealing with heavy pollution for past so many days, Chinese government has sent air quality inspection teams to 18 different cities including capital Beijing.

The teams went to cities in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and neighbouring areas, including Shanxi, Shandong and Henan provinces, the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) said.

"China will push to revamp industrial and energy structures in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and surrounding areas, home to some 50 per cent of China's coal consumption and steel production capacity," MEP deputy head Zhao Yingmin said.

"China will also reduce pollutants by acting on highly polluting companies, promoting clean use of coal and eliminating vehicles with excessive emissions," Zhao said.

By Thursday, the teams had found 33 problems after visiting 137 local government departments and companies.

The recurring air pollution in Beijing sparked by automobile and manufacturing units prompted Beijing local government to constitute environmental police to enforce rules specially the pollution alert system.

At the county level in Shijiazhuang, capital of Hebei Province, the environmental bureau played the major role in implementing emergency responses to heavy air pollution, but other departments were not actively involved, state-run Xinhua news agency reported, quoting the Ministry statement.

Small companies producing medical intermediates in Shijiazhuang were highly polluting, it added.

Several companies in Cangzhou city, Hebei, failed to meet requirements for cutting pollutants and power use.

(With PTI inputs)