Mumbai - the most polluted city of Maharashtra: Greenpeace India

Over the last few years, the pollution level in the city of Mumbai has been fluctuating and has been increasing causing much distress. According to the data released recently by Greenpeace India, Mumbai has become the most-polluted city of Maharashtra. This is the fourth report released by the association which states that besides Mumbai, places like Thane, Navi Mumbai, Pune, Nashik, Bhiwandi, and others have been identified as  polluted cities.

The study reveals that as many as 231 Indian cities are polluted out of the 287 cities which were monitored during the study for 52+ days. The data used was then collated under the National Ambient Air Quality Monitoring Programme (NAMP) to study the results, which stated that the air pollution levels of many cities exceeded the prescribed limits.

Some areas near Mumbai like Dombivli, Ulhasnagar, Thane, Pune, Amravati, Nagpur, Navi Mumbai,  Bhiwandi and others have pollution levels above the limits mentioned by NAAQS and World Health Organisation-specified standards. More than 20 cities in the state have also been termed as 'non-attainment cities' as they have been violating the rules set by WHO and the Central Pollution Board. Out of the 20 identified cities, places like Dombivli, Thane, Pimpri, Chinchwad, Navi Mumbai and Bhiwandi have been listed for the first time in the Greenpeace analysis.

Sharing more information, Greenpeace India senior campaigner Avinash Chanchal said, “It is worrying to see that more than 80% cities had PM10 levels exceeding the 60 µg/m3 limits for PM10 prescribed under the National Ambient Air Quality Standards. If we want to make NCAP truly a ‘national program’, then we have to include all polluted cities into it and implement it with the addition of specific pollution and emission reduction targets in time bound manner.”

The Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) had released the first-ever National Clean Air Action Plan (NCAP) for India in January 2019, where it was mentioned that the cities are expected to reduce air pollution by 20-30 per cent by 2024.