These mobile monitoring vans operated by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s Air Quality Monitoring and Research (AQMR) laboratory are stationed at traffic junctions at Worli, Andheri and Wadala.
¦ In January 2008, Andheri touched 542 microgrammes per cubic metre (µg/m3). In Feb 2007 and Feb 2006, the figures for the same monthly average were 534 µg/m3 and 489 µg/m3 respectively.
¦ While winters are known to fare the worst on Mumbai’s pollution scale, the summer figures have also been rising in comparison to the corresponding period in earlier years.
While in March this year, Wadala recorded 303 µg/m3 levels of SPM, the corresponding figures for the month of March 2007 and March 2006 in the same area were 258 µg/m3 and 300 µg/m3.
¦ In February this year, Wadala’s SPM levels were 425 µg/m3. That is an alarming rise from 178 µg/m3 in February 2007 and 312 µg/m3 in Feb ruary 2006.
¦ In October 2007, Andheri recorded 516 µg/m 3 levels of SPM, whereas in 2006 and 2005 October it was 206 µg/m3 and 305 µg/m3 respectively.
¦ In November last year, SPM levels in Andheri were unusually high with 542 µg/m3, a sharp rise from the 221 µg/m3 in November 2006 and 383 µg/m3 in November 2005.
“Rise in SPM over the years has increased asthma prevalence in the city as it’s an important triggering factor,” says Dr Pramod Niphadkar, honorary secretary of the Asthma and Bronchitis Association of India.
“People don’t give much attention to the pollution, but… though there are very few mortalities due to air pollution, morbidity is of great concern,” he added.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), SPM is among the most serious air pollutants, resulting in an additional 4.6 lakh deaths every year, worldwide. Reiterating WHO’s data, a senior scientific officer at AQMR admits: “SPM is a major pollutant in Mumbai’s air, followed by nitrogen dioxide and sulphur dioxide.”
And this year, scientists at AQMR also point out a new entrant in the family of particulate matter – sand used to set loose interlocking tiles across the city’s pavements. “Every time a car passes, the dry sand that’s left over blows along for miles,” the AQMR officer says. In Mumbai, pollution from road and building construction is second only to vehicular pollution.
Overall, Mumbai’s highest SPM levels are at Maravali, near Chembur, because of the industrial estates in that area. In Deonar, a fixed monitor ing station of the AQMR measured the highest levels of SPM this February – an alarming 1,133 µg/m3, owing to the proximity of the city’s biggest dumping ground. Today, SPM in ambient air in Mumbai is anywhere between 545 µg/m3 to 292 µg/m3, not complying with the central pollution control board. Permissible levels, according to the AQMR, are 140 µg/m3 in residential areas and 360 µg/m3 in industrial areas.
“General asthma levels in the city are anywhere between three to five per cent whereas in polluted areas, that increases to 10 per cent,” says Dr Amita Athavale, head of Environment Pollution Research Centre (EPRC) at KEM Hospital. She says while SPM doesn’t directly cause asthma it causes increased incidence of asthmatic attacks among those already suffering from the disease and triggers chronic obstructive pulmonary disease among those prone to respiratory ailments.
Apart form asthma, doctors see cases of pulmonary fibrosis where lungs lose elasticity permanently, reducing the capacity to take in air. “In pulmonary fibrosis, pollution works as one of the significant triggers. In the Seventies, we saw pulmonary fibrosis cases once every year. In recent times, we are seeing one fresh case every week,” says Dr Niphadkar.
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