The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has invited tenders to appoint a private agency for the verification and audit of Air Quality Index (AQI) monitors of construction sites in mumbai. The civic body is planning to outsource the city's air quality monitoring work for one year due to a shortage of scientific staff at its Research Laboratory in Santacruz.
The proposal was approved by the BMC Standing Committee on Wednesday, July 15. As per sources, the shortage of scientific personnel has affected the laboratory's work. The selected agency will monitor Mumbai's ambient air quality and help prepare the city's yearly Environmental Status Report (ESR), which is supposed to be submitted before July 31. The lab also does special air quality surveys if there are complaints from citizens.
Earlier, the Bombay High Court (HC) had directed that all construction sites install sensor-based air quality monitoring devices and connect them to a centralised monitoring system. According to the BMC, nearly 3,000 such sensors have now been installed across construction sites in Mumbai. These devices must comply with technicalities, calibration standards, accuracy levels, performance requirements, and integration with the central dashboard.
The third-party audit will examine whether the sensor-based air quality monitors meet the approved technical specifications. The contractor will also deploy audit vans fitted with reference-grade instruments to validate the air quality data from the construction site sensors through triangulated verification.
The agency appointed for the project will collect air samples from monitoring stations across the city. It will prepare laboratory reagents, analyse air samples, and operate the BMC's four ambient monitoring stations, five continuous ambient monitoring stations, and one mobile air quality monitoring van. It will also prepare analytical reports and assist the civic body in compiling the annual environmental status report.
As per reports, Congress group leader Ashraf Azmi opposed the proposal. He said the environment department has only 11 workers despite having 51 vacant posts and currently has no department head. He added that the existing staff had been brought in from the solid waste management department.
The BMC had first issued a tender for the project in January 2025. However, it cancelled the process after the lowest financial bid was higher than the estimated project cost. A fresh tender was floated in December 2025, and five companies submitted bids. Only two firms qualified for the financial evaluation stage and are now under consideration.
The proposal states that the contract involves only technical work and does not include any civil construction activity. Since the project is being considered as a revenue expenditure, the BMC has allocated INR 1 crore in its 2026-27 budget. The remaining amount will be provided through the revised budget for 2027-28.
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