Thane: 'Ulhasnagar's poor air quality will affect citizens' health', claims environmentalist

Environmentalists based with non-government organizations carry out surveys for two months in Ulhasnagar to find poor air quality. The activist claims the air quality is affecting the health of the citizens on a daily basis.

Vatavaran, an Non-government organization from Mumbai along with volunteers from Ulhasnagar had installed censor machines at four stops in Ulhasnagar. In December, 2021 the atmos real time air quality machine were installed at three spot including one at Ulhasnagar police in Ulhasnagar camp 1, Navjeevan bank in camp-3 and Venus chowk in Ulhasnagar camp number 4 and recently one was installed at Sarvanand hospital in camp-5.

Farah Kazi, founder of Vatavaran NGO from Mumbai had held a meeting along with active environmentalists and activists in Ulhasnagar. It was attended by more than 30 people, where Kazi declared about the city being in the red zone and the poor air quality report, which will be declared soon. Kazi took public opinion over the precautionary measures to curb the air quality.

Baburao Khedekar, an active member of the NGO said the censors were installed at places including a busy market, garbage burning spot and jean market. "There is no public transport and the road is full of vehicles. It was a fellowship program, where we will further work on how to bring the reading low," added Khedekar who has been volunteering in Ulhasnagar along with Vinod Sevlani, another member.

Khedekar claims the fellowship program to check the air quality is going on in five districts including Chandrapur, Latur, Aurangabad, Solapur and Ulhasnagar. These five districts are the non-attainment cities declared by the Maharashtra Pollution Control board. "As per the report the air quality of Ulhasnagar is bad compared to Chandrapur which is good even after having coal mining there," he added.

Khedekar claims they will come up with a city assessment plan as to how it came about with poor air quality. "Presently the Ulhasnagar municipal corporation is independently working on the issue. We are asking the authorities to rope in the activists and environmentalists as they are the most affected to this. They should bring provision in the coming days," he added saying in the coming days we will install digital boards to make the citizens aware of the daily air quality report.

The NGO will further hold a meeting with doctors to bring solutions and precautionary measures to curb the poor air quality in the city.