Mumbai requires 67 air monitoring stations, has just 21, less than a third

This is less than one-third of the 67 monitoring stations required to identify and analyse Mumbai’s airshed as per the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) guideline. In comparison, Delhi installed a lot of monitoring stations during the same five-year period. While the number of monitoring stations in 2018 was 25, it rose to 35 in 2020, and Delhi now has 40 monitoring stations.

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Out of these 21 stations, 12 are managed by the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB), while nine are managed by the System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research.

The Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change had in 2019 announced the NCAP to address air pollution in as many as 122 cities. The NCAP has set a target of reducing the key air pollutants (PM 10 and PM 2.5) by 20%-30% in 2024.

Mumbai being a peninsular island city surrounded by sea from three sides is known to record smooth flow of air. Hence the city’s overall AQI is affected by incoming winds from the neighbouring districts Thane and Navi Mumbai. Therefore, it is critical that such infrastructure is also available in the adjoining districts.

However, according to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), there are only five AQMS in Navi Mumbai, followed by three in Thane and one in Kalyan. Both these districts are known to have major industrial belts.

Between November 2020 and May 2021, the authorities carried out a pilot project of 40 sensor-based Air Quality Monitoring Stations to support its existing network of CAAQMS in Mumbai and Maharashtra. Despite a successful pilot, these stations were not installed.

Experts said having these sensor based stations at hyper-local level will help a lot since nobody can identify the causes of pollution and address it.

Unlike the CAAQMS, sensor-based stations are low-cost — they cost approximately Rs 50,000 with an annual maintenance cost upto 10 per cent. The cost of a CAAQMS ranges between Rs 1.3 crore and Rs 1.5 crore excluding maintenance works.

When contacted, Avinash Dhakane, CEO of Maharashtra Pollution Control Board, said they are working towards augmenting the number of monitoring stations across the state.

“We are working towards installing 41 more AQMS stations across Maharashtra. We are also thinking about installing sensor-based ones, so that we can get much more localized information,” Dhakane told The Indian Express on Friday.

The BMC plan to install more monitoring stations is yet to be implemented.

In its Budget for 2022-23, the government had earmarked Rs 25 crore for the environment department and had also announced setting up five more CAAQMS in Mumbai. The civic body had also announced setting up smog towers in Mumbai on the lines of Delhi and Lucknow. However, this plan is yet to see the light of the day. Besides, Municipal Commissioner and state appointed-administrator, Iqbal Singh Chahal announced a ‘Hyper Local Air Locality’ monitoring system for robust AQI tracking. However, when contacted, civic officials said that five new CAAQMS will be started soon.

“The project of setting up five new monitoring stations has been commissioned and the devices are already being set up. At present, we are linking up the device’s databases with our online system and we are hopeful that the machines will be functional soon,” Minesh Pimple, Deputy Municipal Commissioner (Environment) told The Indian Express on Friday.

Sachidanand Tripathi, from IIT Kanpur who serves the NCAP’s steering and monitoring committee said, “The biggest advantage of having sensor-based systems is that one can identify a local hotspot along with the factors that are contributing to the current quality of air at a particular place. They are also 50 times cheaper than CAAQMS and may help in building a larger network of AQI monitoring,”

According to Tripathi, Bihar has 530 such centers that have been installed in different blocks that are giving real time updates of the AQI standard. In Uttar Pradesh, a large-scale project of installing 830 sensors has been taken up that would cover 75 districts. All these projects have been carried out by IIT-Kanpur.

Sachidanand Tripathi, from IIT Kanpur who also serves the NCAP’s steering and monitoring committee told Express, “The biggest advantage of having sensor-based systems is that one can identify a local hotspot along with the factors that are contributing to the current quality of air at a particular place. Sensor based systems are also 50 times cheaper than CAAQMS and may help in building a larger network of AQI monitoring,”

Tripathi said that in Bihar 530 such centers have been installed in 530 different blocks that are giving real time updates of the AQI standard. In Uttar Pradesh a large-scale project of installing these sensors has been taken up that would cover 18 districts. All these projects have been carried out by IIT-Kanpur.

“In UP and Bihar, this project has done wonders and we can identify the actual causes leading to poor AQI at a hyperlocal level. If these two states can adapt to certain policies, then I believe they can also embrace the change,” he said.

“In UP and Bihar, this project has done wonders and we can identify the actual causes leading to poor AQI at a hyperlocal level. If these two states can adapt to certain policies…,” he said.

Ronak Sutaria, founder of Respirer Living India, a project that aims to monitor air quality across states for better policies, said just 21 monitoring stations in Mumbai is inadequate by a large margin. “London has a provision of installing one AQI station in every five square kilometers at present, there are more than 100 monitors in London. Mumbai’s map and demography is quite similar to London and going by this formula we should have had at least 130 AQI monitoring stations by now,” Sutaria told The Indian Express.

Professor Abhishek Chakraborty, from IIT Bombay, agreed. “Even though Mumbai has a geographical advantage of having sea on three sides, its AQI is deteriorating heavily, which is not at all a good sign. While there is a need to increase the monitoring stations as much as possible, there is also another need of holistic policies of AQI management that needs to be implemented,” Chakraborty said.

The air quality project is as much about processes to reduce causes of pollution, but experts said, it is important to have adequate infrastructure in place to gather data for better action.