Five air quality monitoring stations for city

Interestingly, of all the measures proposed, there was no mention of the 14 smog towers that BMC had announced it will set up in the civic budget.

At present, there are 20 CAAQMS in Mumbai, of which 11 are monitored by the pollution control board. Nine centres are operated by SAFAR.

Further, the BMC said it will establish two waste processing centres at Gorai and Navi Mumbai for scientifically processing the debris generated from construction sites. While the Gorai centre will cater to the western suburbs, the Navi Mumbai centre will cater to the eastern suburbs and island city.

Officials said these centres would be able to cater to around 1,200 metric tonne of waste daily. A work order for constructing these plants has been issued on February 7, they added. Further, the BMC statement said that eight new centers for treating domestic waste will be set up.

The statement added that BMC it will procure 200 mobile air purifier vehicles to mitigate the dust particles generated from roads and areas where construction works are going on. It will also set to install air purifiers at five traffic junctions – Haji Ali, Mankhurd, Kalanagar, Dahisar and Mulund.

Further, the BMC is set to procure nine new electrical sweeping vehicles, each equipped to clean 28 km of roads daily. It will also purchase 100 mist-spraying vehicles as well as set up 25 new electric vehicle charging stations.

The BMC said it is working towards augmenting the vehicular fleet of BEST and a process of procuring 2,100 single decker buses and 900 double decker buses is underway.