MUMBAI: mumbaikars seem to have breathed a fresher air this November over the corresponding month of the last four years.
The comparison of carcinogenic PM 2.5 levels (pollution or AQI) made by Respirer Living Sciences (RLS), an expert forum in monitoring and analysing air quality, for the November month since 2019 has suggested that Mumbai’s November 2023 remained second best after November 2019.
According to the RLS, which has done analysis based on the central pollution control board (CPCB) data, this November the PM2.5 levels were lesser or better than November last year i.e 2022.
Thanks to bouts of unseasonal showers and stronger sea breeze that seems to have turned the tide in Mumbaikars’ favour this November besides various other reasons such as stern action against polluting construction and garbage sites besides cleaning of arterial roads with water.
Ronak Sutaria, RLS founder, said almost a week of drizzling and cloudy weather besides a warmer temperature and high wind speed from across the sea helped Mumbai in staying with cleaner air.
However, he said the stringent actions taken by authorities such as MPCB and BMC on construction sites, ready mix concrete plants and other polluting small and big industrial units played a significant role besides local administration’s move to clean major roads with water. SImilarly, a large number of people moved out of the city in and around Diwali leading to lesser traffic on the road, he added.
When asked about the marked rise in PM 2.5 in NOvember 2020 over NOvember 2019 which should have been ideally the other way round given 2020 being the lockdown year, Sutaria said in 2019 there were only 10 air monitoring stations of MPCB whereas in 2020 SAFAR added its six stations followed by another five in 2021 taking its own units to 11 other than MPCB’s 10.
“This addition brought several polluted areas under day to day monitoring and hence more PM2.5 value than in November 2019,” he explained.
“In 2019, the November PM 2.5 in the city was 60.6 micrograms/cubic metre, while in 2023 it was 61.1 micrograms/cubic metre, an increase of 0.7% over 5 years. However, year-on-year comparisons tell a different story. In 2020, the November PM 2.5 levels jumped up to 68.9 micrograms/cubic metre, an increase of 13.5% over 2019 levels. In 2021, they fell to 67.2 micrograms/cubic metre, a decrease of 2.4% compared to 2020,” the analysis stated.
“In 2022, they went up to 73.7 micrograms/cubic metre, an increase of 9.8% over 2021 levels and more than 14 times the WHO safe limit of 5 micrograms/cubic metre. In 2023, the levels dropped by 17.2% to 61.1 micrograms/cubic metre, which is still more than 12 times the WHO safe limit and twice the CPCB’s ‘good’ limit of 30 micrograms/cubic metre,” the analysis revealed. Shockingly November 2023 was Delhi’s most polluted November since 2019. Besides Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai and to a certain extent Kolkata showed marked improvements in PM2.5 levels, suggested the analysis.
The comparison of carcinogenic PM 2.5 levels (pollution or AQI) made by Respirer Living Sciences (RLS), an expert forum in monitoring and analysing air quality, for the November month since 2019 has suggested that Mumbai’s November 2023 remained second best after November 2019.
According to the RLS, which has done analysis based on the central pollution control board (CPCB) data, this November the PM2.5 levels were lesser or better than November last year i.e 2022.
Thanks to bouts of unseasonal showers and stronger sea breeze that seems to have turned the tide in Mumbaikars’ favour this November besides various other reasons such as stern action against polluting construction and garbage sites besides cleaning of arterial roads with water.
Ronak Sutaria, RLS founder, said almost a week of drizzling and cloudy weather besides a warmer temperature and high wind speed from across the sea helped Mumbai in staying with cleaner air.
However, he said the stringent actions taken by authorities such as MPCB and BMC on construction sites, ready mix concrete plants and other polluting small and big industrial units played a significant role besides local administration’s move to clean major roads with water. SImilarly, a large number of people moved out of the city in and around Diwali leading to lesser traffic on the road, he added.
When asked about the marked rise in PM 2.5 in NOvember 2020 over NOvember 2019 which should have been ideally the other way round given 2020 being the lockdown year, Sutaria said in 2019 there were only 10 air monitoring stations of MPCB whereas in 2020 SAFAR added its six stations followed by another five in 2021 taking its own units to 11 other than MPCB’s 10.
“This addition brought several polluted areas under day to day monitoring and hence more PM2.5 value than in November 2019,” he explained.
“In 2019, the November PM 2.5 in the city was 60.6 micrograms/cubic metre, while in 2023 it was 61.1 micrograms/cubic metre, an increase of 0.7% over 5 years. However, year-on-year comparisons tell a different story. In 2020, the November PM 2.5 levels jumped up to 68.9 micrograms/cubic metre, an increase of 13.5% over 2019 levels. In 2021, they fell to 67.2 micrograms/cubic metre, a decrease of 2.4% compared to 2020,” the analysis stated.
“In 2022, they went up to 73.7 micrograms/cubic metre, an increase of 9.8% over 2021 levels and more than 14 times the WHO safe limit of 5 micrograms/cubic metre. In 2023, the levels dropped by 17.2% to 61.1 micrograms/cubic metre, which is still more than 12 times the WHO safe limit and twice the CPCB’s ‘good’ limit of 30 micrograms/cubic metre,” the analysis revealed. Shockingly November 2023 was Delhi’s most polluted November since 2019. Besides Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai and to a certain extent Kolkata showed marked improvements in PM2.5 levels, suggested the analysis.