Amid concerns over worsening AQI, BMC chalks out new guidelines

According to the Central Pollution Control Board, Mumbai’s overall AQI reading stood at 135 on Monday which is labelled as moderate. Over the past one week, the city’s average AQI reeled above 190.

Meanwhile, suburban pockets like Malad continued to record poor AQI of 227 on Monday. Earlier last week, multiple pockets of Mumbai, including Deonar, Govandi, Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) and Sewri recorded ‘poor’ AQI readings.
According to the CPCB, AQI readings between 0-50 are regarded as good, 51-100 is regarded as satisfactory, 101-200 is regarded as moderate, 201-300 is regarded as poor, 301-400 is regarded as very poor and above 400 is considered to be severe.

While experts have attributed the ongoing dip in AQI standards to be an amalgamation of natural as well as man-made factors, civic officials maintained that the new guidelines are implemented to ensure dust mitigation measures are followed.

According to the BMC’s latest guidelines, the civic authorities will carry out extensive sweeping and dusting of roads by using mechanical sweepers. The guidelines also stated that water will be sprinkled daily on the road surface to prevent dust displacement.

The BMC maintained that in each of the 26 municipal wards, a team of assistant engineers must monitor if the mitigation measures are being followed on ground.

“All assistant engineers must monitor whether these activities are followed on ground and submit a report to the chief engineer and deputy municipal commissioner (SWM) specifying data pertaining to the number of inspections carried out, actions taken and improvements observed,” read the BMC’s guidelines.

Besides this, the BMC has also mandated that vehicles carrying out construction debris should cover the carriers to prevent spillage and if illegal debris carriers are found on the road, then the vehicles would be penalised.

Bhagwan Kesbhat, environmentalist and founder of NGO, Waatavaran, said that besides implementing measures to control dust mitigation within Mumbai, the administration also needs to chalk out a blanket rule for the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR).

“External factors like industrial emissions are also contributing factors in this case. The unfiltered industrial emissions that are emitted from the satellite districts of MMR are getting trapped in the atmosphere from the satellite regions, following which they are pushed towards Mumbai through the wind direction where they are staying trapped in the lower atmosphere for a longer time,” Kesbhat said.

“At present, primary sources of air pollutants like carbon and nitrogen dioxide are causing a reaction which is leading to formation of secondary particulate matter of the PM 2.5 and PM 10 components. Now that the city is experiencing low temperature, these particulate matters are getting trapped in the lower atmosphere, where they are lingering for a longer time. This phenomenon is affecting the overall airshed of Mumbai, thus leading to poor AQI in multiple pockets,” he added.