Mumbai gets biggest share of Rs 244 crore from Centre to fight air pollution

Under the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) as per recommendations by the 15^th finance commission, the Centre has allocated the biggest share of INR 396.5 crore to Maharashtra, out of which INR 244 crore will be provided to Mumbai, from the total of INR 2,200 crore to all states, in order to improve the air quality in its cities.

Maharashtra has six cities — Mumbai, Vasai-Virar, Aurangabad, Nagpur, Nashik, Pune — featured in the list. Pune got ₹67 crore, Nagpur ₹33 crore, Nashik ₹20.5 crore, while Vasai-Virar and Aurangabad received ₹16 crore each. The state government has been directed to release the funds to the civic bodies within 10 working days.

A letter Tweeted by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said, “The funds are expected to be utilised for the capacity-building of local bodies and meeting needs of the state pollution control board to achieve the goal of maintaining ambient air quality within the jurisdiction of the cities.”

The local bodies in the list shall entrust one urban local body as a nodal entity to receive the grants. This nodal entity shall also have the responsibility of achieving the performance indicators for the entire urban agglomeration, the ministry’s statement said.

On being asked about how can there be an improvement in the air quality, K S Hosalikar, Scientist G & Head of Regional Meteorological Centre (IMD), Mumbai suggested, “During monsoon the dust separates easily and the air cleans automatically. It is not windy in the day hence the dust particles transportation does not take place smoothly resulting into bad visibility and air quality.”

On Tuesday, Mumbai mayor Kishori Pednekar suggested to reserve major roads once a week only for cycling on Tuesday during the road safety committee meeting chaired by member of Parliament (MP) Arvind Sawant. In support of mayor’s proposal, Sawant said that a few hours at least should be reserved for cycling and during that time no motorised transport should be allowed.

The city’s air quality index (AQI) entered the ‘poor’ category for the first time in this season. As Mumbai witnesses a temperature drop, the pollutant-measuring indicator was marked at 218 on Tuesday morning.