BMC targets areas with poor air quality; action in Andheri brings AQI down to 119

Sudhakar Shinde, BMC additional municipal commissioner, told The Indian Express that special attention is being given to Andheri East and mitigation measures are being deployed.

“In Andheri East, there are hundreds of commercial establishments where cutting and shaping of marbles take place, during which huge quantities of dust particles are displaced. Over the past two days, we have ramped up our measures for identifying areas and causes of pollution there. We could identify these two factors as the major contributing factors behind the city’s poor AQI,” Shinde said.

He said that the local ward offices have been instructed to take action against these establishments by prompting the management to cover the periphery of these workshops with sheets, while many such units have been shut down. “Due to the prompt action, the AQI of this place has come down to 100 now. We are also identifying the causes in all pockets where similar mitigation measures need to be implemented,” he added.

The civic body’s move comes after The Indian Express on October 20 published a series — Death By Breath, highlighting the worsening air and dust pollution in the megapolis.

Read Death By Breath Series – Mumbai holds its breath | Why construction dust is lethal | BMC’s rulebook gets a burial

On Sunday, the BMC deployed six mist-spray vans in Mumbai that are also known as anti-smog guns to spray fine nebulised water droplets into the atmosphere that absorbs suspended particulate matter from the air. These guns are mounted on a vehicle — usually a truck, and are connected to a water tank. It sprays water through high-pressure propellers and lets out droplets measuring 50-100 microns.

At present, these vehicles are deployed in South Mumbai localities such as Worli, Haji Ali, Peddar Road, Girgaon, Nariman Point and World Trade Centre.

Municipal commissioner and state-appointed administrator, Iqbal Singh Chahal, told The Indian Express that 30 more such vans will be deployed soon.

“These six vehicles were existing in BMC’s inventory and we carried out some maintenance works over the past two days to deploy them on the streets. Now we are working towards acquiring 30 more such vehicles in a wet-lease manner for which the tendering process is underway,” Shinde said.

The city’s AQI fell to alarming levels after the monsoon withdrawal. The BMC is also set to issue a separate set of guidelines on October 23, listing out further measures for bringing down dust pollution. Civic sources said that in the new set of guidelines, provisions would be made for penalising violators who would not implement dust mitigation measures at construction sites.