Mumbai’s deteriorating air: BMC to set up centre to send out alerts, health advisories

Kesarkar made the announcement while addressing a press conference at the civic headquarters. Speaking to The Indian Express later, he said, “We are planning to set up a command and control centre which will give us hyperlocal AQI data. This way, we will have a much improved data system that will alert us whenever any pocket in Mumbai records ‘poor’ or ‘very poor’ AQI and, based on observations, health alerts or public advisories can be issued.”

The Indian Express report pointed out that the civic body, while announcing its budget in February this year, had announced the plan for issuing health advisories. Later, in the Mumbai Air Pollution Mitigation Plan (MAPMP), the BMC also announced issuing notifications to residents on periods of worsening air quality, similar to bulletins issued by the weather bureau for adverse climate events.

Kesarkar said that air filtration units will also be installed on top of as many as 350 buses of Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) undertaking. Kesarkar said that all the proposed systems will become operational in next two months.

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The air quality in Mumbai has been deteriorating over the past few days. (Express photo by Amit Chakravarty)

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Diwali is a full three weeks and winter is two months away but Mumbai is already holding its breath — bracing for the choking winter that lies ahead. (Express photo by Amit Chakravarty)

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Air pollution in Delhi. (Express photo by Amit Chakravarty)

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In the wake of rising pollution, the Congress party urged the state government to implement the previous MVA regime's climate action plan (Express photo by Amit Chakravarty)

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Mumbai’s guardian minister Deepak Kesarkar claimed that ongoing works of development projects such as metro were causing dust pollution in the city (Express photo by Amit Chakravarty)

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Dr Rajesh Sharma, Department of Pulmonary Medicine, Sir H N Reliance Foundation Hospital told PTI people tend to develop bronchitis when they constantly inhale polluted air (Express photo by Amit Chakravarty)

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Dr Sharma added there is a definite correlation between poor air quality and worsening symptoms ranging from cough, breathlessness, and wheezing (Express photo by Amit Chakravarty)

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The most susceptible are the elderly, young and people who venture out when the quality of the air is the worst (Express photo by Amit Chakravarty)

A civic official from BMC’s environment department said the command and control centre will gather information through sensor-based AQI monitoring devices, which the BMC plans to install in several pockets to record hyperlocal data.