The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has issued notices to 482 buildings across Mumbai for violating guidelines aimed at controlling air pollution. Out of these, 264 constructions have been served with `stop work` notices to halt ongoing activities that are contributing to poor air quality, officials said on Monday.
The action is part of BMC’s ongoing efforts to enforce strict compliance with environmental regulations and improve air quality in Mumbai’s city and suburban areas, they said.
The Mumbai civic body has been monitoring construction activities closely and taking decisive action against projects that flout the issued directives, said the officials.
In 2023, BMC had issued 27 points with guidelines to curb air pollution in the city and in 2024 one more guideline was issued. 13 out of these 28 point guidelines shape rules to be followed by construction sites to curb dust in their vicinity, contributing to bad Air Quality Index (AQI). The construction dust comprises PM10 and PM2.5 as primary pollutants. Ozone as a secondary pollutant, responsible for smog. These also include metal barricading, green cloth covering, regular water-sprinkling, scientific storage and transport of debris, installation of air-quality sensors, and smoke-control systems.
In a similar action last week, the civic body had issued stop work notices to 53 construction sites across the city for allegedly violating air-pollution control guidelines and contributing to rising pollution levels, officials said on Thursday.
The action had followed surprise inspections conducted in several wards after air quality worsened in November, the civic body had earlier said.
It had said action against pollution-causing activities will continue. It appealed to all builders and contractors to strictly follow the prescribed guidelines and support the city’s pollution-control efforts.
The city civic body earlier on Monday said that Mumbai’s air quality has shown significant improvement over the past two days, thanks to several measures taken to control pollution across the city and its suburbs.
According to Mumbai civic body, these measures include strict action against private construction sites and government projects that fail to follow pollution-control guidelines. Notices have already been issued to a number of sites, and the BMC has said that action will continue.
BMC Commissioner and Administrator Bhushan Gagrani has instructed all departments to ensure that the 28-point pollution-control guidelines, issued on October 15, 2024, are fully followed. He also clarified that the Graded Response Action Plan Stage-4 (GRAP-4) is not currently applicable to Mumbai, but monitoring of pollution sources will continue.
