The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation witnessed the city’s worsening air quality and thereby announced a number of guidelines on Friday to curb the pollution. It is very much evident that the task for the municipal corporation is to cut out for the civic body. The quality of the air has continued deteriorated with each increasing day in Mumbai.
The only constant in Mumbai where the quality of air has continuously deteriorated is the number of Continuous Ambient Air Quality Monitoring Stations (CAAQMS). During the year of pandemic, the city had 21, but there is no increase over the last three years to this number and it has remained at the same position. In fact, Mumbai had only 20 monitoring stations in 2018, which means over the past five years there is an increase of only one monitoring station. At present, the city has 21 monitoring stations whereas the city is a need of 67 air monitoring stations and the current number is less than one third of the expected numbers.
In comparison, the capital, Delhi had installed a number of monitioring stations during those same five-year-period. Delhi had 25 monitoring stations in 2018 and it rose to 35 in 2020 and currently, Delhi has 40 monitoring stations which means that the city has installed 15 air monitoruing stations between a time period of 5 years. Delhi and Mumbai are the two cities that has the highest Air Quality Index (AQI). Both the cities after Diwali face a lot of problems and people usually suffer from breathing problems after these festivals.
