A five-member committee formed by the Bombay High Court (HC) to check the enforcement of air pollution control norms in the city of Mumbai, as well as the adjacent area of Navi Mumbai, has revealed that there are defaults despite the availability of detailed norms.
The committee, formed on November 28, has submitted its report to the HC yesterday after physically verifying 36 locations in Mumbai and Navi Mumbai. The report shows that no location has adhered to the SOP procedures prescribed by the BMC and guidelines provided by the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board.
The issue was also brought to light by a report pointing out gaps in monitoring and enforcement levels, with questions being raised about whether or not levels are being done effectively given that air quality levels in Mumbai have increasingly fallen into “poor” and “very poor” categories.
Background of the Court Intervention
This committee was formed under the directions of the division bench of Chief Justice Shri Chandrashekhar and Justice Gautam Akhand during the hearing of a suo-motu Public Interest Litigation (PIL) cases filed on November 28. It was brought to their notice by senior advocate Darius Khambata and Advocate Pooja Thorat that the air quality of the city has deteriorated as the overall AQI level of Mumbai has touched 300, thereby going into the "very poor" to "severe" categories.
Lawyers argued that although guidelines had been laid down for controlling pollution by both the BMC and the MPCB, they had been inadequately implemented at the implementation level. They also argued that only 400 out of 1,000 construction sites in Mumbai had AQI monitors, and of these, only 117 were functional.
Findings from site inspection
As directed by the HC, the committee implemented inspections on 36 sites of construction, infrastructure, demolition, industries, and road work sites. In the report, it was found that all sites were violating the comprehensive 29-point SOPs laid down by the BMC or the circulars issued by the MPCB.
The committee noted that enforcement action happened only after judicial review or when pollution was at very high levels, deeming this to be “reactive rather than proactive.”
“This can be seen in that, every time the committee received information about inspections carried out, including stop work orders carried out and/or inspections conducted just prior to the committee’s attendance, this was for the most part carried out a few days before the committee visited the concerned area/site,” the report stated.
Gaps in AQI Monitoring Systems
One of the most important findings is in connection with the inadequacy in using AQI monitoring devices in the construction and infrastructure sector. It was indicated that despite many sites claiming that monitoring devices had been installed, there was no validation with respect to the type, performance, and area covered by the monitoring devices.
More importantly, the AQI monitoring stations set up at locations were not connected to any centralized system maintained by either the BMC or the MPCB.
“The recording of readings of AQI air quality monitors can only be done manually by physically going to the location concerned and, to the notice of the team, there is no system in place by either BMC or MPCB that receives and stores these readings in order to monitor them on a real-time basis,” a report stated.
Moreover, the display boards containing the AQI data were usually placed inside the construction sites, which ensured that the data were not visible to the residents or passersby, thus contradicting the aim of making such disclosure.
Poor Sensor Installation and Coverage
The committee also pointed out the problem of flawed placement of sensors. In the case of large construction areas spread over an acreage of 10 acres or larger, only one AQI sensor was discovered, placed at the entrance point or corner.
In projects of high-rise structures above 50 floors, sensors were often located on the ground floor, and they did not capture the pollution concentration above ground levels. The committee observed that the location of the sensors was not proportional to the size of the construction site, the direction of the wind, or the height of the construction taking place.
As per the report, the implementation of pollution control measures like water sprinklers, foggers, and smog guns was carried out mostly in an ad hoc manner, mainly for the sake of compliance during inspection visits.
The committee further noted that construction and demolition wastes transported by vehicles were many a times left open and untracked, going against existing standards. As a result, dust was generated during transportation and unloading.
Interestingly, even the cleaning of roads in the municipal area was found to be adding to dust pollution. As mentioned in the report, manual as well as mechanical sweeper cleaning tends to disturb the dust instead of reducing it, as not much water is used during the cleaning processes.
Key recommendations
The committee recommended that AQI readings from construction activities be seamlessly integrated with government monitoring by BMC and MPCB. The need for standardization in sensor requirements, installation procedures, and visibility of AQI readings has also been emphasized. These results reveal an important enforcement gap between the intention to enforce policies, on the one hand, and their actual enforcement on the ground, on the other, especially when the health threat from urban air pollution has reached serious levels. The HC will examine the recommendations made by them and provide further guidance on improving air quality management in and around Mumbai.
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