Experts raise concern about falling air quality of Mumbai

Mumbai is likely to experience an increasing number of days with "poor" and "very poor" air quality in the coming years during winter months, especially during the months of November and December, according to experts and researchers.

The bright side, however, is that Mumbai's air pollution is likely to see a dip in the coming days under the influence of Cyclone Mandous’ aftermath and with the wind speed over Mumbai expected to pick up.

“Over the last two months, there have been unprecedented changes in the weather scenario. Owing to the phenomenon of La Nina (cold ocean temperatures in the Equatorial Pacific), India has been experiencing and will continue to experience more than unusual cooler and extended winter,” said Dr. Gufran Beig, Founder and Project Director, System of Air Quality Weather Forecasting and Research (SAFAR) under the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Ministry of Earth Sciences.

“In addition to this, the western part of India is influenced by the warming of the Mediterranean Sea. As a result, there are more than unusual calm winds across the Mumbai region and surrounding parts of western India. This has ensured that the dispersion of air pollutants being emitted from pollution-related activities does not happen swiftly despite Mumbai being surrounded by the ocean,” Baig added.

During the past 40 days, between November 1 and December 10, Mumbai recorded 22 days in ‘poor’ and ‘very poor’ categories for air quality. Of these 22 days, the overall air quality in Mumbai during 4 days (December 5, 6, 7 and 8) was in the ‘very poor’ category.

During the same period last year, the number of poor days was only 6 while there were no very poor air days. From November 1 to December 10 in 2021, there were 18 days within the permissible limit for particulate matter (PM2.5) but between November 1 and December 10, 2022, there was only 1 day when the concentration of PM2.5 was within the permissible limit.

“To protect Mumbai residents' health, the government of Maharashtra and the local municipal authorities must develop a Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) for Mumbai. A GRAP is a set of emergency measures that go into effect whenever the city's air quality hits a certain threshold. A need is also there to issue immediate health advisories to safeguard the health of Mumbaikars,” said Bhagwan Kesbhat, Founder Waatavaran Foundation.

“One of the primary roles of BMC is to safeguard Mumbaikars’ health through their Health Department. Despite writing to the BMC in February 2022 to issue health advisories through social media and other mediums of communication, as had been done for Covid-19 the civic body has failed the people of this city. Health advisory would ensure that Mumbaikars knew in advance and understood the health impacts and could take action on a personal and institutional level. However, not a single advisory has been issued even as citizens continue to suffer increasingly acute health effects from pollution,” added Sumaira Abdulali, Convenor, Awaaz Foundation.