The Bombay High Court has sounded the alarm on Mumbai’s air quality crisis. And then the court observed, “We have to find a solution. We can’t live like this,” highlighting the severity of the city’s toxic air.
The observation came during a hearing on a public interest litigation regarding the rising pollution levels. The court is pushing hard for urgent solutions.
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The Committee and the Data Dive
Here’s the kicker: the court appointed a five-member committee on November 28 to get to the root of the problem.
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Task: The committee’s job is to collect data and assess ground-level contributors to air pollution.
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Action: They have identified 36 locations across Mumbai for data collection.
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Timeline: The committee’s report is expected to be submitted by the next hearing on December 22.
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BMC’s Mitigation Efforts
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) filed an affidavit outlining the steps they are taking, especially targeting construction sites, which are major contributors to dust and pollution.
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Construction Sites: The Development Planning Department recorded 1,954 construction projects currently underway in Mumbai.
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Monitoring Rollout: The BMC is rapidly deploying air quality monitors:
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1,020 low-cost sensors (LCS) are already installed at construction sites.
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397 more installations are ongoing.
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They are prioritizing sensor technologies based on reliability and data connectivity protocols, or nothing.
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Centralized Control: The BMC has engaged the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) to develop a Decision Support System (DSS) and a centralized, web-based air quality dashboard. The goal is to link real-time data from all construction sites to a central server.
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Beyond Construction: Bakeries and Enforcement
The BMC is also acting on a previous High Court order regarding a specific industrial source.
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Cleaner Fuels for Bakeries: The BMC has been working to transition bakeries away from polluting fuels.
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347 bakeries have either converted or are in the process of converting to cleaner fuels.
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246 bakeries are yet to comply.
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Notices have been issued to all non-compliant bakeries, and enforcement action is now underway.
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The Enforcement Trigger
The thing is, the BMC has a hard trigger for halting work due to poor air quality: construction activity is required to be stopped if the Air Quality Index (AQI) exceeds 300 for three consecutive days at any monitoring station.
The BMC is also carrying out regular road-washing using advanced cleaning methods to reduce dust levels, claiming it is “alive to the problems” and is actively working with stakeholders to mitigate the issue to the “best possible extent.”
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