Mumbai: Under the National Clean Air Program (NCAP) launched in 2019, Mumbai was identified one of the 131 non-attainment cities in India, that is in the list of cities which consistently fails to National Ambient Air Quality Standards.
Accordingly, to curb the air pollution in the economic capital, the central government granted Rs 95.5 crore and till now Rs 620 crore has been provided under 15th finance commission to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).
The BMC on its progress report of NCAP has started that it has utilised 100% of the central government funds and 94% of the funds provided under 15th finance commission to implement measures to control air pollution in Mumbai.
The report which was presented during the eight steering committee meeting of NCAP, the BMC has stated that maximum of the funds was used for procuring electric BEST, followed by minor expenses against procuring seven mechanised sweeping machines and six converting traditional crematorium into electric or PNG.
Although the BMC claims the NCAP is been implemented successfully in Mumbai, the citizens hardly see the effect considering the worsening Air Quality Index (AQI) the city is grappling with.
“Unfortunately there has been no meaningful consultation with the public nor civil society regarding the preparation and implementation of the Clean Air Plan. Spending money on buying electric buses was the easy way out, and also very lucrative for the decision makers since the buses were ordered from a company that has failed to deliver most of the buses,” said environmentalist and trustee of Conservation Action Trust, Debi Goenka.
“The critical issues of pollution caused by construction activities, industrial pollution, biomass burning, etc have not been addressed, which is why we continue to suffer,” Goenka added.
While activist Zoru Bhathena said that the best measure to clean Mumbai's air is not to pollute it in the first place. "Spending Rs 10,000 Crores to needlessly dig up every road, and then to spend Rs 95 Cr to clean the pollution caused by all this digging, makes no sense,” he said.
A senior officer from BMC’s environment department said, “Under the 15th finance commission, Rs 1240.25 crore has been allocated to the BMC for air quality management. Till now Rs 620.11 crores has been granted and we have utilised 94% of the funds to implement measures to curtail air pollution in Mumbai. As per the commission, highest allocation i.e a total of Rs 992.20 crores are to be used for procuring electric buses. Accordingly, around Rs 493 crore has used to purchase electric BEST buses in Mumbai.”
“Rest of the funds are been used for activities like dust mitigation, traffic synchronised, conversion of bakeries and crematoriums into electric/PNG, construction and demolition and air quality monitoring and strengthening among others,” the officer added.
Enviornment activist Sumaira Abdulali slammed slammed the BMC saying the NCAP is not effective is Mumbai. “Unfortunately, the expenditure incurred indicates that no substantial amount has been spent in curbing pollution from construction at source, even though extensive construction and reconstruction are some of the largest contributors. The extremely high AQI and PM2.5 (which ismost damaging to human health since PM2.5 is directly inhaled) indicate that hundreds of crore rupees spent under NCAP have not effectively controlled air pollution.”
“Mumbaikars continue to face serious and even life-threatening health issues due to air pollution,” she said.
