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Journalism of Courage
Ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Mumbai Friday, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has taken up sprinkling of water in some of the major roads of Mumbai since early morning to rein in dust pollution.
Mumbai on Friday morning recorded an Air Quality Index (AQI) of 283, which is regarded as ‘poor’. The PM will visit the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT) station at Colaba to flag off two new Vande Bharat trains and then proceed to Andheri (East) for another event. The AQI of Colaba and Andheri as observed in the SAFAR app is 243 and 269 respectively, which are also regarded as ‘poor’.
The BMC’s move comes a week after its Municipal Commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal issued a diktat on curbing the air pollution in the city.
“We are spraying water through jet sprinklers and the roads have also been washed late at night. This is not being done just keeping in mind the PM’s visit, but as a regular practice as ordered by the municipal commissioner,” said a civic body officer.
The officials have also asked real estate workers to cover the trucks properly while transporting construction debris through the city.
Meanwhile, several pockets of Mumbai continued to record poor to worse AQI.
Chembur recorded the worst AQI of 336, followed by Malad (303) and BKC (280). Bhandup recorded an AQI of 235, followed by Worli and Borivali. The air quality of Navi Mumbai stood in the very poor category at 320.
According to SAFAR’s AQI monitoring chart, an AQI between 0-50 is termed ‘good’; between 51-100 ‘satisfactory’; 101-200 ‘moderate’; 201-300 ‘poor’; 301-400 ‘very poor’ and that beyond 400 is labelled ‘severe’.
It is pertinent to note that similar steps were taken by the civic body to curb air pollution level ahead of PM Modi’s visit on January 19 at the MMRDA grounds in Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC).
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