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Wood-based chimney smoke of bakery troubling residents in Madanpura
Shahid Shaikh, a resident of Mumbai, has been plagued by toxic smoke from a bakery chimney outside his house. Despite complaints, the BMC has failed to take action, leaving Shaikh to seal up his house at a cost of ₹1.5 lakh. The bakery owner claims switching to cleaner fuel would be expensive. Bakeries in Mumbai have been ordered to shift to cleaner fuels, but many continue to use wood and charcoal, contributing to air pollution. The BMC has promised to send a flying squad to the bakery to issue notices.
Mumbai: After a heart attack last year, Shahid Shaikh has had to be hospitalised five times. After his latest hospital admission on October 15, he had to come home to a recurring problem right outside his window in Madanpura, Byculla.
The chimney of the Central bakery is right outside his house, and it keeps emitting toxic smoke, says Shaikh. “The heat and the smoke were affecting me to such an extent that I had no choice but to go the extra mile and seal up my house.”
Shaikh installed an AC and added a glass seal to his window. Helped by his family who added in a coat of paint, this cost them ₹1.5 lakh.
Shaikh has been complaining about the chimney’s smoke since 2015, after he lost both his grandmother and his father. He suspects both deaths were hastened by the chimney’s smoke. His grandmother died in 2017 due to repeated congestion and infection in her lungs, and, worried that the pollution from the smoke was contribution to it, he had her shifted to a relative’s house in Mumbra. His father suffered from heart problems, diabetes and TB and passed away in 2017.
In response to his complaints, the BMC has always deferred the blame to different departments. The health department asked him to approach the building and factories department as it is the chimney that is illegal. The departments have assured him that action will eventually be taken against the bakery, even issuing a notice under the Section 351 of the MMC Act against the chimney in 2016. HT saw a copy of the show cause notice stating the chimney constructed was illegal. But no action has materialized yet. Shaikh even filed a petition in the High Court against the bakery in 2018, but the case is still pending.
“All I’m asking is that the bakery shift to using electric or gas as fuel,” said Shaikh. Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Aslam Merchant said, “After the resident reached out to me, I have also been complaining on the BMC’s 1916 helpline, but it has made no difference.”
The owner of the Central Bakery, Sajid Khurshed Ali, said switching to a different source of fuel would be expensive, “Switching to an alternative source of fuel will cost me at least ₹25 lakh, and I cater to a population of labourers who subsist on cheap pav.” He also claimed that his bakery is not the only cause of pollution in the area and that there are other restaurants who also use wood ovens. He also said that he was the landlord of the building in which Shahid Shaikh lives, and as they had filed a complaint and eviction case against him in a civil court, this was a tactic being used against him.
A previous study by National Environment Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) in 2019 quantified the issue, finding that bakeries that use wood and charcoal are responsible for 16% of PM10 emissions.
As per the BMC’s air pollution mitigation plan released in March 2023, bakeries were ordered to shift to cleaner fuels from coal or wood, like electric or gas ovens. A senior official from the BMC’s E ward said that considering the state of air pollution in the city, using wood as a fuel in bakeries was not allowed. He assured that the flying squad would be informed of the bakery, and they would visit it on Saturday, issuing notices as needed.
In previous cases of complaints too, reported by HT, bakeries have been directed to shift to cleaner fuel or an eco-friendly oven and install scrubbers that will absorb excess dust and carbon emissions.
