Adhere to dust mitigation norms’: BMC issues notice to 97 builders

“The letters have been sent to ensure that all the builders and contractors follow the basic preventive measures till they acquire the sprinklers and fogging machines. Several redevelopment projects are ongoing all around the city and this is also contributing to dust pollution at a local level. Therefore, we are asking them to immediately set up the tin sheets around the periphery,” Dighavkar told The Indian Express on Thursday. “We haven’t issued any stop work notice as of now, since the authorities have given a month long time to the stakeholders for acquiring them,” he said.

The civic body has also issued another notice to the contractor carrying out the Goregaon Mulund Link Road (GMLR) project in the western suburbs, asking them to take permission before carrying out trenching and digging of roads. “All the work of constructing of roads, drains, bridges to be carried out by taking proper permission of construction and demolition. All the sites should have CCTV cameras installed to monitor vehicle movement,” read the BMC’s notice sent to GMLR working site. “The Municipal commissioner has given instructions to follow the said rules in a bid to improve the city’s AQI. If these instructions aren’t followed then strict action would be taken against violators,” the notice read.

Besides this, civic officials also said that a team of Nuisance Detectors (ND) has been deployed in and around the Deonar dumping ground to keep a track on garbage burning activities. “The NDs are staffers from the Solid Waste Management (SWM) department, all of them are working round the clock to ensure that garbage burning doesn’t take place at night,” said an official from SWM department.

Sources in BMC said that a proposal for appointing clean up marshals has been sent to muncipal commissioner and tender for the same would be floated this month. Civic officials have also maintained that several marble shops have been shut down in Andheri, which has recorded the worse air-quality in past one month.

Between October 1 and 31, Andheri recorded poor and very poor air for nine days, which is the highest. This place also recorded 11 days of moderate air and 9 days of good air quality.

The air quality monitoring station is located at Andheri East’s Chakala and is being maintained by Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM). “The marble factories contribute to bad air as particles fly in the air whenever cutting work is in progress. Therefore, we have shut several of these shops in past one week and have told them to not start operating unless they set up tin sheets,” an official said.

Meanwhile, Mumbai’s AQI stood at 169 on Thursday. According to CPCB data, six pockets of the city, having registered an AQI between 200 – 300, are experiencing poor air quality. The worst air quality has been recorded in Mulund West in the eastern suburbs where the AQI stands at 232, followed by Colaba (226), Chembur and Bandra East which have both recorded an AQI of 222, Sion (218) and BKC (201). Meanwhile, only Andheri East’s Chakala recording station has recorded good air quality with the AQI touching 74, Thursday morning.