Mumbai: The Greenpeace India recently released its fourth report, which brought to light shocking fact that Mumbai is the most-polluted city of Maharashtra. Thane, Navi Mumbai, Pune, Nashik, Bhiwandi, too, have been identified as topmost polluted cities.
Fourth version of Airpocalypse report by Greenpeace India has identified 231 Indian cities. As many as 287 cities were monitored for more than 52 days to collate the data in 2018 under the National Ambient Air Quality Monitoring Programme (NAMP).
Air pollution levels exceeded the 60 µg/m3 limits for Particle Matter (PM)10 as prescribed under the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS).
In this study, Mumbai is the most polluted city in terms of PM10, and air quality is a little less than three times the NAAQS and eight times the 20 µg/m3 WHO-prescribed limits.
Likewise, air quality levels in Dombivli, Chandrapur, Ulhasnagar, Thane, Pune, Amravati, Nagpur, Jalna, Latur, Kolhapur, Pimpri, Chinchwad, Nashik, Sangli, Jalgaon, Akola, Solapur, Navi Mumbai, Aurangabad and Bhiwandi are above the NAAQS and 5-8 times higher than the World Health Organisation-specified standards.
According to the report, 20 cities of Maharashtra have been identified as non-attainment cities, which means the rules and regulation prescribed by the WHO and the Central Pollution Board are being grossly violated in these cities.
Notably, Dombivli, Thane, Pimpri, Chinchwad, Navi Mumbai and Bhiwandi are the newly-identified non-attainment cities, according to the Greenpeace analysis.
In January 2019, the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) released the first-ever National Clean Air Action Plan (NCAP) for India. Under the programme, the cities are expected to reduce air pollution by 20-30% latest by 2024 from 2017 levels.
However, Airpocalypse - IV report highlights that the CPCB has identified only 122 non-attainment cities, and 102 of them have been included in the NCAP till now.
The 122 cities are from 28 states and 9 union territories, and however, 116 more cities, which exceed 60 µg/m3 limit prescribed by NAAQS, are not covered in these cities, according to 2018 annual data, and these should be included in the non-attainment category.
Commenting on the worsening state of affairs, Greenpeace India senior campaigner Avinash Chanchal said, “ It is worrying to see that more than 80% cities had PM10 levels exceeding the 60 µg/m3 limits for PM10 prescribed under the National Ambient Air Quality Standards.
If we want to make NCAP truly a ‘national program’, then we have to include all polluted cities into it and implement it with the addition of specific pollution and emission reduction targets in time bound manner.”
