Its move severely criticised, BMC yet to take final decision on smog towers

To tackle poor air quality in the city, the BMC in this year’s civic budget said it would set up 14 smog towers. The move came after Chief Minister Eknath Shinde announced the installation of smog towers in Mumbai. Each of the 30-ft-long towers will cover a 1-km radius and will be able to purify the air through radio wave technique.

However, the BMC’s decision to install smog towers was severely criticised by citizens as well as members of the scientific community, who said that the towers have proven to be ineffective in the long run. Earlier this week, 650 citizens from Mumbai also wrote to BMC commissioner and the civic body’s state-appointed administrator Iqbal Singh Chahal, urging him to reconsider his decision about setting up these towers.

Civic officials told The Indian Express that the BMC will carry out an assessment of meteorology and current geographical conditions of Mumbai before taking a final call on floating tenders for the smog towers.

“Before going ahead with the plan we will carry out a study of the city’s airflow as well as the overall weather pattern as the present geographical outlay of Mumbai needs to be understood well. This city has highrises as well as slum areas, therefore understanding the wind direction will be important. Based on the findings, we will decide on the next course of action,” said an official on condition of anonymity.

The BMC, meanwhile, has set up a Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) to study the city’s air. The committee comprises members from IIT, IITM, NEERI and other environmental agencies. A civic official said that a meeting of this committee will be held next week. “The problem of air pollution is a new phenomenon in Mumbai and we are working towards understanding all the possible measures before adopting them on the ground. This issue also involves various stakeholders so we want to have everyone on the same page before going ahead with floating the tenders,” said the official.

Smog towers a white elephant?
Members of the scientific community told The Indian Express that owing to high maintenance cost, smog towers may turn out to be a white elephant for the BMC.

“Smog towers may be effective inside indoor situations but it is impossible to clean the outdoor atmosphere by using them. These towers suck inside air from the outer atmosphere, purify it and then release this clean air back in the same polluted atmosphere. This is quite similar to cleaning a dirty cloth in the washing machine and throwing that cloth back again in the dirt. So, unless the existing atmosphere is free of pollutants, there is no way the smog towers can bring effective results,” said Dr Abhijit Chatterjee, associate professor, Bose Institute Department of Science and Technology.

Dr Harshal Salve, additional professor of AIIMS and coordinator of CAPHER (Collaborative for Air-Pollution and Health Effects Research) India, said that setting up a smog tower would cost up to Rs 25 crore. “After these towers become operational, one needs to carry out regular maintenance which also costs a lot of money and the towers may also malfunction if they are not being maintained. This may result in these smog towers becoming a white elephant for the BMC as on one hand, they will become exponentially expensive, while on the other hand they will not give desired results,” Salve said.

“Therefore, instead of going for such costly ventures, small scale interventions like continuous cleaning of road dust using mechanised brooms could bring much more effective results,” he added.