Navi Mumbai civic body chalks out detailed action plan to address issues relating to air pollution

The Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) has chalked out a detailed action plan to address the increase in levels of Particulate Matter with diameter of 10 micrometers (PM10) and incorporate stringent measures to address air pollution-related concerns.

Navi Mumbai is one of the 19 cities in the State that has failed to meet the prescribed limit for PM10 set by the Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change (MoEF & CC) .

NMMC commissioner, Abhijit Bangar, said, “There was an immediate need for a clear road map for not only addressing the PM10 violations but also to achieve carbon neutrality. Since carbon emission cannot be brought down to zero, measures can be adopted to bring down the carbon footprints by ways of utilising renewable energy sources. The action plan prepared by NMMC is one of the mediums to achieve these factors.”

NMMC has made the plan with the help of Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) and Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) by involving multiple agencies.

The city’s PM10 recordings have shown an alarming increase from the annual average standard of 60ug/m3. As per the Environmental Status Report (ESR) of NMMC, 2020-21, the highest concentration of PM10 was recorded at Nerul at 103ug/m3, which is 1.69 times the standard concentration.

The City Air Action Plan, which was originally created in 2019, was revised recently. “The primary reason for air pollution in the city is due to construction and infrastructure work, industrial pollution, increase in personal vehicles, ongoing development work of the new airport and non-destined vehicular traffic as one of the important roads that connects Mumbai with the Pune (Mumbai-Pune Expressway) is passing through the city,” said senior executive from the engineering department.

As a part of the plan, the civic body is identifying ‘micro actions’ to reduce air pollution, which includes procuring more mechanical sweeping machines so as to cover more stretches of roads, procurement of mist sprayer to contain dust particles on roads and highways, planting of indigenous plants with broader leaves in order to capture dust, switching to PNG as fuel in industries, procurement of electric buses for NMMT.

“The micro management of the action plan is being done with the guidelines of CPCB and has now gone for approval. Instead of randomly undertaking plantations in micro management, the focus is on having more Miyawaki plantations. We are also setting up the infrastructure of 180 charging stations for electric vehicles,” said the city engineer, Sanjay Desai.

The Action Plan will also be used to identify and quantify the exact sources of air pollution.

Officials informed that MPCB, with the help of National Environment Energy Research Institute (NEERI) and IIT-Bombay, has conducted Air Quality and Emission Source Apportionment Study for Navi Mumbai city, which is expected to be released soon.

Insisting that residents provide segregated waste or even setting up of composts, not parking vehicles haphazardly on roads that leads to traffic congestions, regular checking of PUC certificates, commuting through the public transport, tree plantation, etc are all stated to be a part of the cleaner city air project.

Due to delay in implementation during the lockdown, the deadline to implement the measures is extended. “We have recently constituted a two-tier air pollution mitigation cell to have a regular interaction with the stakeholders so that review and progress of the action plan can be undertaken, and if there are any challenges in implementing the plan, we can address them,” added Desai.