Mumbai: BMC announces clean air initiative in its budget, shares list of plan to control air pollution

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The Municipal Commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal on Saturday presented the BMC budget 2023-24 which included the civic body's clean air initiative to curb the increasing air pollution in Mumbai.

According to the BMC, the civic body has decided to initiate its mitigation action plan that will include the clean air initiative. The Mumbai clean air initiative will work towards three broad goals - to curb pollution concentration levels across various sectors, to initiate a multi-level monitoring strategy for the city and to decentralise planning and increase community health awareness to reduce personal exposure.

The civic body said that the four major contributing factors to Mumbai‟s deteriorating air quality were identified as road and construction dust, traffic congestion, industries and power sector, and waste burning. It said that to address this emergency in the city, BMC announced a seven-step strategy under the Clean Air

Mumbai Initiative, with an objective to reduce air pollution emissions.

The BMC highlighted its seven strategies to improve Mumbai's air quality.

Highlights-

1. Sustainable and Clean Construction and Demolition Practices.

- Construction guidelines for builders to reduce dust.

- Conditions to control Dust Pollution at building construction sites.

- Road dust deduction measures.

- Mechanical/ e-power sweepers, sprinklers to settle dust, vehicle mounted misting equipment and air purification units, Ionisation based air purification system.

Also Read: BMC budget: Civic body focuses on NCDs; 9 per cent drop in health sector

3. Sustainable and Clean Transport Measures

- Electrification of BMC vehicles, charging infrastructure, procurement of 3000 electric BEST buses, conversion of old BMC diesel/ petrol vehicles into CNG vehicles.

- Fully Adaptive Traffic Control systems are already installed at 258 junctions.

4. Sustainable Waste Management Measures

- Sustainable segregation in households, ban on waste burning, waste to energy plant of 600 TPD, biomining of legacy waste.

5. Ecologically Sustainable Urban Greening Projects

- One lakh trees to be planted through ecologically sustainable planting practices - along Mithi River, Sahityasamrat Annabhau Sathe Udyan, Mahakali Caves urban forest, Swami Vivekanand Udyan, Bharat Van Udyan, Marol.

- Adopting sustainable micro-greening guidelines.

6. Effective Monitoring

- Robust air quality monitoring system - 5 numbers of Continuous Ambient Air Quality Monitoring Stations (CAAQMS)

-Ward level assessment of emissions under NCAP with support from MPCB, NEERI, IIT-Bombay and other partner institutions.

- Commencing hotspot monitoring - "hyper local monitoring"

- Consultants to be appointed to coordinate with the refineries, power plants, and other pollution emitting companies.

7. Communication and Awareness Campaigns

- Partnership with mainstream media , formation of ecoclubs, collaboration with NGOs, issuing public health advisories.