Mumbai: Afflicted with a dry cough, Prakash Chavan says smog in the city is heavier than usual this winter. Chavan has been living in Deonar in Mumbai’s eastern suburbs for the past five years. “I have had a dry cough for a long time, about two weeks. This is quite unusual,” he told ThePrint.
Doctors, too, claim they’re witnessing more influx of patients complaining of chronic cough this winter. “We normally saw about 5 per cent chronic cough patients during winter but this time, up to 20 per cent of the patient inflow into our clinic involves chronic cough. And this cough is prolonged,” said Mumbai-based general physician Dr Deepak Baid.
Mumbai, the country’s financial capital, saw air quality levels dip from “poor” to “very poor” category for most of December, with the trend continuing well into the new year.
The Air Quality Index (AQI) for Mumbai was even worse than Delhi’s for a week in mid-December.
The city’s famous coastline has always helped Mumbai keep pollution levels in check, but environmental experts say the resumption of construction activities (metro, roadworks, buildings), besides changes in wind speed, and increased vehicular emissions, among other factors, have led to rising pollution levels in the ‘Maximum City’ this winter.
Dr Gufran Beig, founder project director at SAFAR — a government agency that monitors air quality in major Indian cities — said Mumbai normally sees “moderate” to “poor” AQI during winter months.
This, however, is the first time the city has seen a prolonged period of “poor” to “very poor” AQI since SAFAR began tracking it six years ago, he adds.
“This time, it has gone a notch higher. Many days are in the very poor category and it (AQI) is consistently in the poor category,” said Dr Beig, now a professor at the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS) in Bengaluru.
Air pollution is measured in terms of particulate matter (PM) — fine particles in the air. An AQI between zero and 50 is considered “good”, 51-100 is “satisfactory”, 200-300 is “poor”, 300-400 is “very poor”, and 400-500 is “severe”.
As of Thursday (5 January) evening, Mumbai’s AQI stood at 306 (PM 2.5), just behind Delhi’s 320. This falls in the “very poor” category and warrants a health advisory to avoid longer and heavy exertion outdoors.
“After the two-year Covid gap, construction activities including infrastructure and real estate are back in full swing. This, plus reduced wind speed, added to particulate matter getting stuck between land and air, is leading to a phenomenal rise in pollution in Mumbai,” said a Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) official who wished to not be named.
Global warming is adding to changing weather patterns, the official added.
According to Dr Baid, doctors in Mumbai initially suspected that a new Covid-19 variant had prompted the uptick in the number of chronic cough cases this winter. But that did not turn out to be the case. “This could be some other virus and mostly related to increased pollution,” he added.
ThePrint reached Atul Patil, deputy municipal commissioner of Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) environment cell, who refused to comment. Calls to BMC’s deputy health executive officer went unanswered.
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‘Vulnerable communities more exposed’
Faiyaz Shaikh — who lives in Govandi in Mumbai’s eastern suburbs, home to the Deonar dumping ground, a cement mixing unit, and a biomedical incinerator plant — claims residents in that part of the city bear the brunt of rising air pollution levels.
A social activist who runs the NGO Govandi New Sangam Welfare Society, Shaikh has installed an air monitoring device on his terrace and claims data from it suggests air quality levels in Govandi have been in the “very poor-unhealthy category” these past few weeks.
“I have written to the President of India, prime minister, Union environment minister, chief minister, MPCB, BMC, and CPCB (Central Pollution Control Board), but I am still awaiting a response. This part of the city experiences more AQI than the rest of the city,” he told ThePrint.
According to the Mumbai Climate Action Plan 2022, initiated by the previous Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government, solid waste accounts for 8 per cent of the total emissions in Mumbai, while vehicular emissions account for 20 per cent. A ward-wise analysis in the report shows air pollution levels are critical in the M-East ward, where areas like Mankhurd, Govandi, and Deonar are located.
“Increasing air pollution levels caused by increasing traffic congestion, unregulated construction activities and mismanaged solid waste adds to the city’s risk exposure, leaving vulnerable communities more exposed to adverse health impacts,” read the report released in March last year.
Each day, Mumbai generates about 7,000-7,500 metric tonnes of solid waste which then makes its way to landfills. Toxic fumes emanating from these landfills can be potentially hazardous to a 5-10 km radius.
Mumbaikars can expect poor AQI in January
Many environmental experts have also pointed to a change in wind patterns this winter that might have added to the rise in air pollution levels.
Dr Beig said Mumbai has a natural advantage against air pollution in the form of coastal winds. “Every three to four days, there is a wind reversal and it sweeps away all the pollutants from the land, giving out cleaner air. However, this is the third consecutive year of La Niña where these conditions can change the wind direction and speed. And we have observed that the surface wind has become slower and it is unusual,” he said.
Explaining further, the MPCB official quoted earlier said global warming and changing temperatures have added to these conditions. “Normally for a coastal city, the wind speed is 12-13 kmph, which helps in dispersing air pollutants and particulate matter but this winter, changing weather patterns and wind speed dropping just below 4-5 kmph has resulted in pollutants getting stuck.”
How are emissions from construction activities and the resultant dust getting trapped? Dr Beig said it is due to the gap of 10 days or so between wind reversal cycles. “Even if norms for construction activities weren’t followed earlier, the wind would take away the pollutants, but now, wind reversal isn’t happening and wind speed is very calm,” he said.
Given that Mumbai and parts of Maharashtra just witnessed an unusually warm December, if weather forecasts hold, Mumbaikars can expect poor air quality levels through January, he added. On 17 December, the mercury in Mumbai climbed to 35.9 degrees Celsius and remained above 35 degrees Celsius for the next two days — marking the highest daytime temperature recorded in any city across India.
The government, said the MPCB official, needs to come up with solutions to curb this pollution going forward. “Whether it is the odd-even rule, or something else, measures need to be given hard thought,” he adds.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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