67% posts vacant at BMC air quality stations in Mumbai

The civic body has air quality checking stations at Worli, Khar, Andheri, Bhandup, Maravali, and Deonar, a research lab at Santacruz and three mobile vans at Worli, Andheri and Wadala.

Of the 52 posts in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s six air quality monitoring stations, laboratory and three mobile vans, 35, including that of senior scientists, are vacant, according to the response to a Right to Information (RTI) query.

The absence of staff at the air quality stations has hit daily tasks such as inspection of industries for emissions and collection of fresh data on air pollution. (Credit: BMC)

The civic body has air quality checking stations at Worli, Khar, Andheri, Bhandup, Maravali, and Deonar, a research lab at Santacruz and three mobile vans at Worli, Andheri and Wadala.

The absence of staff has hit daily tasks such as inspection of industries for emissions and collection of fresh data on air pollution.

Under the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981, BMC is responsible for monitoring real-time data across air quality stations and submitting them to the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) every year.

The reply to activist Chetan Kothari, who filed the query, stated the stations didn’t have a scientist in-charge, and only one of the required five scientific officers.

The maximum number of vacant posts is that of junior scientific officers and lab assistants.

According to officials from the civic body, the environment department is trying to address the problem.

“Certain duties such as inspection of industries are the responsibility of the civic body, but we can’t do it anymore. The staff crunch is affecting our daily functions. We are in the process of recruiting more officers,” said Vishwas Shankarwar, deputy municipal commissioner (environment), BMC.

Commenting on its impact on data collation and assessment, Kothari said, “The current staff strength is insufficient. It is also in violation of the Central Pollution Control Board guidelines that mandate efficient monitoring of air pollution by all municipal corporations with 100% work force.”

Kothari also questioned the environment status report (ESR) released by the civic body every year.

“With inadequate manpower, the same data is being duplicated annually and published as fresh report. This is extremely dangerous for a major city with a host of environmental problems,” he said.

Environmentalists said local municipal authorities have an important role in curbing pollution from local sources such as waste burning, construction, factories and transport.

“Vacant posts at any municipal corporation for pollution research or monitoring poses a challenge in acting against pollution,” said Sunil Dahiya, senior campaigner, Greenpeace India.

“Our air quality action plan for individual cities is completely dependent on the municipal corporation’s inputs for section-wise source mitigation. For Mumbai, we used to depend on BMC data till 2017, but with more than 11 real-time MPCB monitoring stations, data
collation and monitoring are not an issue,” a senior MPCB officer said, on condition of anonymity.