Mumbai has overtaken its maligned Indian predecessor dustbowl of Delhi to become the second most polluted city in the world. With an Air Quality Index (AQI) of 163-169 according to varied reported sources, the city of dreams now breathes air that will certainly put off dreams at a full stop very soon.
It is evident what the reasons for this are, too evident in fact but some of us choose ways of denial until doom knocks at our door. According to the CPCB data, between November 2022 and January this year, the number of ‘poor’ and ‘very poor’ days in Mumbai was more than double that of the previous three winters. The AQI report rapid jump is a result of this. According to 2020 research by the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) and IIT- Bombay, dust from the road or other construction work accounts for over 71% of the particulate matter load in Mumbai’s air. Factories, power plants, airports, and garbage dumps have contributed to making Mumbai’s air one of the dirtiest to breathe.
As India’s hawk-eyed vision zoned in on Delhi and what the government would do to safeguard its citizens, we have another problem coming in full force. As we study in our classroom right from junior classes about climate action, climate change, global warming, the greenhouse effect, and whatnot, we learn all of it in isolation of what’s happening all around us and without any understanding of what we could do to stop it, without any usage of this scientific density of facts. It seems our government officials and all of us take this isolation to our hearts and focus on one polluted city to cure and then move to the other city to cure and then wait for another to fall sick to get cured, the cycle goes on, there is no stop to being sick, just cure after cure after cure, a constant bout of not being healthy ever.
This is also a gift of our glorious actions in the name of development.
This horrific news comes just a handful of months after the restart of the metro car shed construction by cutting off Aarey Forest, a decision that was halted by the former government but has been resumed by the incumbent Eknath Shinde-led government within hours of its swearing-in.
Mumbai has a critical issue and that is the lack of breather spaces amidst the concrete heat pads all around. Aarey Forest and the Sanjay Gandhi National Park remain the two natural open spaces available. The laying off of Aarey is happening due to the construction of a car shed ( a parking lot and a service area for metro trains ) for the upcoming Mumbai Metro 3, 3500 trees are to be laid off for the same. The loss will be critical. Experts from NEERI and IIT have suggested 7 alternate locations to build the car shed and implied the alarming situation of flooding that will happen if Aarey is chopped off. Neither will the relocation make the metro 3 plan suffer nor will it hamper the progress of the project but rather will save 808 acres of forest land, 27 tribal hamlets, 76 species of birds, 16 species of mammals, and much more biodiversity to be saved.
With the news of the dangerous situation of pollution at large, it is yet to see what action the government will take. Will it continue to degrade Mumbai’s climate health or will Mumbaikars rise to stop their lives from being hampered?
This is not the only case. The construction of the Vadodara-Mumbai Expressway demands the destruction of over 350 mangroves. The HC has passed this and also ordered compensative plantation but it is still unclear how much compensation can happen if the mangrove marshes are turned into plain lands for construction and the whole ecosystem is changed with the new plantation. Yet another critical hit to the already suffocating city.
When the news broke worldwide about Mumbai’s pollution, BMC was fast to respond. It proposes to set up recycling plants for debris to clean up the air and for construction material-carrying trucks to properly cover up while transporting. None is an effective solution to the actual cause of the issue: construction.
But when the Prime Minister arrives, it seems, Mumbai has to be shining without a dust particle in the air.
Ahead of Modi’s visit to Mumbai on 24th Feb, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has taken up a sprinkling of water in some of the major roads of Mumbai since early morning to rein in dust pollution. Mumbai on Friday morning recorded an AQI of 283. The PM will visit the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus station at Colaba to flag off two new Vande Bharat trains and then proceed to East Andheri for another event. The AQI of Colaba and Andheri as observed is 243 and 269. The irony right? Control pollution and dust only to inaugurate and celebrate new ways to promote it?
When Greta Thunberg glared at the screen in sheeting anger and exclaimed “how dare they”, it should have been a wake-up call for millions. It was, it did its toll on those who care. It didn’t matter to those who don’t care and others who are complacent in this heinous crime laughed at a young girl challenging their autonomy to burn out the planet in the name of development, materialistic success, and growth of humanity.
The government and officials in positions of power are very much involved in this slow, silent murder of the planet. Why would they care? For the water is sprinkled to stop dust when they drive around in their cars.
It is us, commoners, who have to stand in the scorching heat and the dust whilst those who make decisions that will control how hot or polluted our city will be don’t care. How much longer do we stay suffering? How much longer before every city in India becomes most polluted, then control measures and then again more pollution? How much longer till the climate crisis is taken at its alarming worth? There’s no time left. It’s time to scream “how dare they”.