MUMBAI: In a first for Maharashtra, four distinct urban local bodies (ULBs) have teamed up to find ways to reduce air pollution. They will use an approach known as Airshed Management.
The four ULBs include Thane, Badlapur, Navi Mumbai, and Ulhasnagar, which are collaborating with the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MCPB), MCGM (Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai) Centre for Municipality Research (MCMR), Powai and the Institute for Sustainable Communities (ISC) as part of a pilot project called the Maharashtra Clean Air Accelerator to better implement the National Clean Air Program (NCAP). An airshed is the amount of air that is present over a given geographic area, according to Vivek Adhia, Country Director, ISC. Due to emissions entering the airshed through local activities or being transferred from other places, the region, which has a shared flow of air, becomes uniformly contaminated. Since this phenomenon transcends administrative divides, it is crucial that all regional stakeholders—including ULBs, transportation agencies, and urban planning organisations—co-ordinate.
The MPCB, ISC, and MCMR have focused on the four aforementioned ULBs because they are a part of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR)’s larger airshed but lack the institutional capacity that BMC has, namely a dedicated Environment Department. Mumbai already has a dedicated Climate Action Plan with air pollution as a key focus sector.
To better understand the needs of the ULBs, ISC held eight-week workshops in April and June with many nodal officers from various departments in the chosen ULBs in collaboration with MCMR. According to Adhia, ISC is considering establishing a single air quality cell for these ULBs as part of the Clean Air Accelerator, which can coordinate amongst several ministries whose operations effect air pollution. ISC also aims to facilitate knowledge exchange between ULBs and other institutions in order to improve fuel efficiency and reduce emissions across sectors. In addition, these four ULBs are collaborating with a number of regional real estate organisations to create a standard operating procedure for the collection, treatment, and disposal of construction and demolition waste.