TOI : Cleaner tech helps curb pollution : Sept 11, 2007
Cleaner tech helps curb pollution
Shalini Nair I TNN
Mumbai: BMC data shows improvement in ambient air quality across the city in
the last year even as levels of lead have remained constant.
Although suspended particulate matter (SPM) levels have gone down, they
still exceed the limits set by the Central Pollution Control Board at all
sites except Borivli. However, air quality levels of SO2, NO2 and lead are
within the limits specified by the CPCB. These facts pertaining to traffic
and pollution come from the BMC’s latest Environmental Status Report.
Environmental experts offer a number of reasons for the decline in
pollution. “Over the last few years, there have been major changes in fuel
quality; lead has been eliminated from petrol, and there has been a
reduction in the amount of sulphur and benzene,” says Rakesh Kumar from the
National Environmental Engineering Research Institute. “The average age of
vehicles has also gone down from 8-10 years to 3-5 years.”
Vehicle-owners, who are increasingly switching to greener fuels like CNG
and LPG, and manufacturers who now comply with Euro emission norms, are also
doing their bit. About 1,000 of the 3,409 buses in the BEST fleet are
Euro-III-compliant and almost all the 50,000-odd taxis in the city have
already converted to CNG, while more autos, cars and goods carriers are also
switching to cleaner fuels.
Dr Amita Athavale, head of the chest medicine department at KEM
hospital, agrees that government policies on fuel have lead to better
ambient air quality. “But while levels of SO2 and NO2, which worsen asthma,
have decreased over the last year, it still needs to be studied whether
there has been a subsequent decrease in morbidity,” she says