Mumbai: The BMC has issued the final guidelines for construction and infrastructure sites for the mitigation of air pollution to be implemented from Wednesday. A special squad will be formed at the ward level to prevent illegal dumping of construction and demolition debris at night. These squads will visit the construction site, videograph the violations and issue a stop work notice or seal the worksite immediately, warned the civic authorities.
Mumbai Air Pollution Mitigation Plan to come in March
A seven-member committee of senior civic officials released the Mumbai Air Pollution Mitigation Plan in March this year. However, the civic body failed to implement immediate and long-term measures in the past six months, resulting in rising air pollution in the city post-monsoon. The civic authorities have now come up with new guidelines mandatory for private construction sites and infrastructure projects carried out by other government agencies, like the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA), Metro railway, work on bridges and flyovers.
Dust arising from construction sites, construction debris, road dust, usage of unclean fuels in restaurants etc were found to be the main source of increasing air pollution in the city. As per guidelines, the construction and infrastructure sites should erect metal sheets around the periphery of the project. All buildings under construction should have green cloth /jute sheet/tarpaulin from all sides, continuous spraying of water during demolition of the structure, install CCTV water fogging while carrying out loading and unloading of materials at construction sites.
“The civic authorities have instructed all 24 assistant municipal commissioners to immediately form a special squad in their respective wards. Each squad will be headed by a senior ward official, two engineers, a policeman and a marshal. A ward with a comparatively lower population and size will have two squads, a ward with a middle size will have four squads and a larger size with six squads. The enforcement squad will visit the premises, videography of the worksite and take stringent action on the construction sites not adhering to the guidelines,” the guideline order mentioned.
Guidelines:
MPCB will monitor the air pollution emitted from industries such as BPCL, HPCL, RCF, Tata Power and industries in the MIDC area daily for the next month and take appropriate action.
All construction sites should deploy sensor-based air pollution monitors at work sites and act immediately on observing pollution levels exceeding the limit.
All builders/developers shall engage only those vehicles which have vehicle tracking systems installed on them
