Burning of biofuels, suspended dust emit 48% of total pollution in Mumbai

Despite a 2016 study carried out by the System of Air Quality Weather Forecasting and Research (SAFAR) indicating that the share of pollutants from burning the biofuels and suspended dust was almost 48.25 per cent to the PM 2.5 levels in Mumbai, environmentalists blame the authourities and say that they seem to be doing very little to tackle air pollution in the city.

The SAFAR study showed a sector-wise breakup in which the contribution of the emissions from the slums was 27.05 per cent, suspended dust contributed 21.2 per cent, and a of 35.82 per cent was from the emissions from the industries and the power sector.

The fear of Mumbaikars resonates with the fact that the data by SAFAR, which generates Air Quality Index (AQI) for Mumbai at 10 locations, indicated that the city's air quality in 2017 was worse than that of 2016 and 2015.

Harish Pandey, President of New Link Road Residents Forum (NLRRF), said that everyday massive amounts of smoke is being released from the slums in Ganpat Patil Nagar on Link Road. "While in summer and the rainy season it does not cause much issue, but in winters it forms a thick blanket over the area and even affects the health of people staying in the buildings nearby," he said adding that despite knowing that this was a contributor to air pollution, authourities were simply unfazed.

According to Pandey, a similar situation exists at several places in Mumbai, including Cuffe Parade, Dharavi, Malwani, and other places.

Meanwhile Sumaira Abdulali, Convenor of Awaaz Foundation, said that often while talking about air pollution one only blames vehicular emissions, but for Mumbai suspended dust is one of the main pollutants.

"It's high time authourities take the dust pollution issue seriously and it needs to also be divided sector-wise to understand what was the contribution from the construction of buildings, roads and major infrastructure so that proper mitigation measures could be planned," she said.

"The sector-wise figures would not have changed substantially though its a 2016 study and one has to understand that apart from industries, the main contributor is biofuels being burnt in slum areas and dust, which needs to be tackled to improve the AQI," said Gufran Beig, Project Director, SAFAR.