Mumbai: Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), the country’s richest civic bodyThe city on Saturday announced its “biggest ever” budget of over Rs 50,000 crore, but less than 0.05 per cent of it was set aside for one of Mumbai’s most pressing issues – its deteriorating air quality.
BMC Administrator Iqbal Chahal announced a seven-phase plan under the ‘Mumbai Clean Air Initiative’ as part of the 2023-24 municipal budget.
The plan outlines “best practices” for construction and demolition of buildings, measures to reduce dust on roads, clean transport, sustainable waste management, projects for creating urban greening, effective air quality monitoring and communication and awareness campaigns .
The civic body has earmarked a budget of Rs 25 crore for it – which includes money for installing air purifiers, a controversial project but given the go-ahead by Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde.
Chahal clarified that this was a general allocation for mitigation of air pollution and the departments concerned would make more specific allocations as per the requirement. For example, the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) undertaking will specify its own estimate for procurement of electric buses, which are part of a seven-phase plan, he said.
“The CM and Deputy CM (Devendra Fadnavis) are concerned about the increasing air pollution in the city. And the CM also wrote a letter suggesting us to install air purifiers across the city. We are monitors and regulators and will continue to monitor air pollution.
However, environmental experts and opposition leaders have expressed doubts about the effectiveness of installing air purifiers to control pollution.
BMC has been under an administrator From March 2022, when the term of its general body expired. Elections are expected to be held this year.
Mumbai’s air quality has been getting worse Since December last year. The air quality index (AQI) has since remained in the poor to very poor category, with the city beating even Delhi’s pollution levels on some days.
A group of opposition leaders in Maharashtra, especially the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray), has criticized Shinde-led government for not prioritizing the issue of Mumbai’s air pollution.
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BMC’s plan to deal with air pollution
As suggested by CM Shinde, five air purification stations will be set up in Mumbai at Dahisar Toll Naka, Mulund Check Naka, Mankhurd, Kalanagar Junction and Haji Ali Junction for continuous monitoring of air quality.
Chahal said that in addition to this, the BMC will buy around 3,000 more electric buses and over time take the total fleet of electric buses to 7,000. According to BMC sources, its number is currently around 400.
The BMC also has plans to reduce road dust and reduce the impact of dust caused by construction and demolition work, by ensuring that developers use water sprinkling, providing dust screens along the outer façade of buildings. Follow guidelines such as using covered vehicles to transport debris. construction material and so on, said the BMC administrator.
The civic body is also banking on creating more urban forests along the Japanese Mayawaki method. Mumbai has already done planted Around three lakh trees were planted using this method and it is expected to take the number to four lakh by March this year.
Shiv Sena (UBT) has already done Slammed The BMC for not implementing the Mumbai Climate Action Plan, when Aaditya Thackeray was the state environment minister in the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government and the BMC was governed by the then undivided Shiv Sena. The MVA consists of the Shiv Sena (UBT), the Nationalist Congress Party and the Congress.
Last year, Shiv Sena split into Shiv Sena (UBT) and Shinde-led Balasahebchi Shiv Sena following a rebellion by Shinde-led Shiv Sena MLAs, resulting in the fall of the Uddhav-led MVA government in Maharashtra. The Shinde faction and the BJP then formed the government in the state.
Chahal claimed on Saturday that the BMC’s current plan contains elements of the Climate Action Plan.
“There are points from the MCAP (Mumbai Climate Action Plan) that we have included here. Like electric buses, desalination plants, STP (sewage treatment plant) projects in Mumbai, dedicated climate action plan cell, which is already half done,” Chahal said.
critics were not impressed
The city’s environmental activists, however, are not impressed with the BMC’s plans, especially the decision to buy air purifiers.
“Air purifiers have not worked in Delhi and by putting them (a) at a few places, how will they deal with air pollution for the city? Instead they should work towards planting more natural purifiers, ie trees,” said environmentalist Joru Bathena.
Debi Goenka, founder and director of the Mumbai Conservation Action Trust, told ThePrint that the concept of air purifiers was like installing an air conditioner on campus and expecting it to work. Even a hostel air purifier requires the windows to be closed so how will it work in the open?”
Shiv Sena (UBT) MLA Aaditya Thackeray has also termed the idea of air purifier towers as “fake”.
“They (the vendors) came to me when I was the environment minister. They were selling those products for Rs 8-10 crore. I have studied them in detail. Machines, air purifiers do not work deeply. They are being used but BMC is not attacking the source of the dust.
Chahal, however, said that the BMC had studied similar setups in different cities and it would not be fair to compare Mumbai with Delhi as “the pollution level is high in Delhi, but the purifiers work elsewhere”. Delhi has installed smog towers to control air pollution.
Meanwhile, Goenka and Bathena also raised doubts over BMC’s plans to enforce sustainability in construction work.
“The guidelines are there but nobody is following them and that is the problem,” Goenka said.
Bathena further said, “The government itself has a big contribution in this construction dust. They have now planned a road paving project. Will they monitor their own people?”
Mumbai’s first budget over Rs 50,000 crore
The BMC presented a whopping Rs 52,619.07 crore budget for the 2023-24 financial year, which is 14.5 per cent higher than last year. According to the civic body, this is the first time in the history of BMC that the budget has crossed Rs 50,000 crore.
According to Chahal it was also the first time that the capital expenditure estimates (for the 2023-24 financial year), which is the amount spent on building infrastructure, exceeded the revenue expenditure estimates with a ratio of 52:48. Is.
According to the budget, the BMC is spending heavily on major infrastructure works such as road construction and construction of sewage treatment plants, both of which have been launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Complete Groundbreaking ceremony last month.
(Edited by Poulomi Banerjee)
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